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USEFUL 
WILD   PLANTS 

OF  THE 
UNITED  STATES  AND  CANADA     ^ 


BY 
CHARLES  FRANCIS   SAUNDERS 

Author  of  "Under  the  Sky  in  California,"  "With  the  Flowers 

and  Trees  in  California,"  "Finding  the  Worth  While  in 

California,"  "Finding  the  Worth  While  in 

the  Southwest,"  Etc. 


ILLUSTRATED  BY    PHOTOGRAPHS, 

AND  BY  NUMEROUS   LINE  DRAWINGS 

BY  LUCY   HAMILTON  ARING 


NEW  YORK 
ROBERT  M.  McBRIDE  ^  CO. 

1926 


Copyright,    1920,    by 
Robert    M.    McBride    &    Co. 


Revised  Edition 

Published 
January^   jgab 


Published   April,   1920 


TO 
DOROTHY  F.  H. 

LOVER  OF  WILD  THINGS 

THIS  VOLUME 
IS  AFFECTIONATELY  INSCRIBED 


INTRODUCTORY  STATEMENT 

ALL  the  familiar  vegetables  and  fruits  of  our 
kitchen  gardens,  as  well  as  the  cereals  of  our 
fields,  were  once  wild  plants;  or,  to  put  it  more  ac- 
curately, they  are  the  descendants,  improved  by 
cultivation  and  selection,  of  ancestors  as  untamed  in 
their  way  as  the  primitive  men  and  women  who  first 
learned  the  secret  of  their  nutritiousness.  Many  of 
these — as,  for  example,  the  potato,  Indian  corn,  cer- 
tain sorts  of  beans  and  squashes,  and  the  tomato — 
are  of  New  World  origin;  and  the  purpose  of  this 
volume  is  to  call  attention  to  certain  other  useful 
plants,  particularly  those  available  as  a  source  of 
human  meat  and  drink,  that  are  to-day  growing  wild 
in  the  woods,  waters  and  open  country  of  the  United 
States.  Though  now  largely  neglected,  many  of 
these  plants  formed  in  past  years  an  important 
element  in  the  diet  of  the  aborigines,  who  were 
vegetarians  to  a  greater  extent  than  is  generally 
suspected,  and  whose  patient  investigation  and  in- 
genuity have  opened  the  way  to  most  that  we  know 
of  the  economic  possibilities  of  our  indigenous  flora. 
White  explorers,  hunters  and  settlers  have  also,  at 


INTRODUCTORY  STATEMENT 

times,  made  use  of  many  of  these  plants  to  advan- 
tage, though  with  the  settlement  of  the  country  a 
return  to  the  more  familiar  fruits  and  products  of 
civilization  has  naturally  followed.  Man's  tendency 
to  nurse  a  habit  is  nowhere  more  marked  than  in 
his  stubborn  indisposition  to  take  up  with  new 
foods,  if  the  first  taste  does  not  please,  as  frequently 
it  does  not;  witness  the  slowness  with  which  the 
tomato  came  into  favor,  and  the  Englishman's  con- 
tinued indifference  to  maize  for  human  consumption. 

Sometimes,  however,  the  claims  of  necessity  over- 
ride taste,  and  there  would  seem  to  be  a  service  in 
presenting  in  a  succinct  way  the  known  facts  about  at 
least  the  more  readily  utilized  of  our  wild  plants. 
The  data  herein  given,  the  writer  owes  in  part  to 
the  published  statements  of  travelers  and  investi- 
gators (to  whom  credit  is  given  in  the  text),  and  in 
part  to  his  own  first  hand  observations,  particularly 
in  the  West,  where  the  Indian  is  not  yet  altogether 
out  of  his  blanket,  and  where  some  practices  still 
linger  that  antedate  the  white  man's  coming.  The 
essential  worth  of  the  plants  discussed  having  been 
proved  by  experience,  it  is  hoped  that  to  dwellers  in 
rural  districts,  to  campers  and  vacationists  in  the 
wild,  as  well  as  to  nature  students  and  naturalists 
generally,  the  work  may  be  practically  suggestive. 

The  reader  is  referred  to  the  following  standard 


INTRODUCTORY  STATEMENT 

works  for  complete  scientific  descriptions  of  the 
plants  discussed:  Gray's  Manual  of  Botany  of  the 
Northern  United  States  (east  of  the  Rockies) ;  Brit- 
ton  and  BrowTi's  Illustrated  Flora  of  the  United 
States  and  Canada  (the  same  territory  as  covered  by 
Gray) ;  SmalPs  Flora  of  the  Southeastern  United 
States;  Watson's  Botany  of  the  Geological  Survey  of 
California;  Coulter's  New  Manual  of  Botany  of  the 
Central  Rocky  Mountains;  Wootton  and  Standley's 
Flora  of  New  Mexico, 


\ 


TABLE  OF  CONTENTS 

CHAPTER  PAGE 

Introductory  Statement. vii 

I    Wild  Plants  with  Edible  Tubers,  Bulbs  or  Roots      1 

II    Wild  Plants  with  Edible  Tubers,  Bulbs  or  Roots 

(Continued) 17 

III  Wild  Seeds  of  Food  Value,  and  How  They  Have 

Been  Utilized 41 

IV  The  Acorn  as  Human  Food  and  Some  Other  Wild 

Nuts 67 

V  Some  Little  Regarded  Wild  Fruits  and  Berries     .  83 

VI  Wild  Plants  with  Edible  Stems  and  Leaves     .      .  114 

VII  Beverage  Plants  of  Field  and  Wood 141 

VIII  Vegetable  Substitutes  for  Soap 167 

IX  Some  Medicinal  Wildings  Worth  Knowing      .      .  184 

X  Miscellaneous  Uses  of  Wild  Plants       ....  210 

XI    A    Cautionary    Chapter    on    Certain    Poisonous 

Plants 236 

Regional  Index 259 

General  Index 269 


THE  ILLUSTRATIOXS  IX  HALF-TONE 


Indian  woman  shelling  acorns,  to  be  ground  into 

meal Frontispiece 

FACI.Va 
PAGK 

Prickly  Pear    {Opimtia  tuna),  one  of   the  important  food 

plants  of  the  desert  regions 18 

An  Indian  of  the  Great  Lakes  Region  threshing  wild  rice 

by  means  of  dasher-like  stick 46 

Red  Maple   {Acer  rubrum),  the  source  of  a  dark  blue  dye 

in  vogue  among  the  Pennsylvania  colonists     ....     54 

A  Western  mountain  Indian's  storage  baskets  for  preserving 
acorns  and  pine-nuts.  They  are  elevated  to  forestall  the 
depredations  of  rodents 70 

A  Southwestern  desert  hillside,  which,  in  spite  of  its  desolate 
look,  bears  plants  yielding  food,  soap,  textile  fiber  and 
drinking  water.  The  man  in  the  foreground  is  cutting 
mescal 90 

Gathering  tunas,  fruit  .of  the  nopal  cactus,  California     .      .   108 

California  Fan  Palm  {Washingtonia) ,  which  furnishes  food, 

clothing  and  building  materials 112 

Cereus  giganteus — Sahuaro — producing  a  fruit  that  is  used 

for  wine,  syrup  and  butter 112 

Southwestern  Indian  cutting  mescal  {Agave  desert i)  for 
baking 136 

Ecliinocactus,  a  vegetable  water  barrel  of  the  Southwestern 

deserts 158 

A  California  Soap  Root,  Chenopodium  Calif ornicum     .      .   158 


THE  ILLUSTRATIONS  IN  HALF-TONE 


FACING 
PAGE 

A  Pacific  soap  plant  (Chlorogalwn  pomeridianum).  The 
bulb,  stripped  of  its  fibrous  covering,  is  highly  sapona- 
ceous. The  fiber  is  useful  for  making  coarse  brushes 
and   mattresses 174 

Tunas,  fruit  of  a  Southwestern  cactus.     Showing  how  it  is 

opened  to  secure  the  meaty  pulp 174 

Flowering  Dogwood  {CornuPi  forida,  L.)  The  bark  is  used 
in  making  a  medicine  similar  to  quinine,  and  produces 
also  a  red  dye  used  by  the  Indians 204 

Blood-root  (Sangiiwaria  Canadensis),  valuable  as  the  source 

of  a  bright  red  dye 224 

Butternut  (Juglans  cinerea).  The  bark  is  the  source  of  a 
dye  used  for  the  uniforms  of  Confederate  soldiers  during 
the  Civil  War 240 

Indian  woman  preparing  squaw-weed   (Rhus  trilohata)   for 

basket  making 252 

Mesquit  Beans,  utilized  by  the  Indians  for  food  and  beverage  270 

Wild  Date  {Yucca  glaiica).     The  root  furnishes  a  satisfactory 

substitute  for  soap 270 


THE  ILLUSTRATIOXS  IX  LINE 


PAGE 
9 


Groundnut  (Apios  tuherosa) 

Jerusalem  Artichoke  {Ilelianthus  tuherosus) 5 

Indian  Breadroot  (Psoralea  esculenta) 8 

Biseuit-Root    (Peucedanum  Sp.)         11 

Biscuit-Root  (Peiicedanum  ambiguum)         12 

Bitter  Root  {Lewisia  rediviva) 15 

Wild  Leek  (Allium  tricoccum) 18 

Seao  Lily  {Calochortus  Nuttallii) 19 

"Wild  Onion  [Brodiaea  capitata) 21 

Camas  (Camassia  esculenta) 24 

Chufa   (Cy penis  esculentus) 26 

Florida  Arrowroot  (Zamia  sp.) 28 

Conte  {Smilax  Pseudo-China) 30 

Arrowhead    (Sagittaria  variahilis) 32 

Water  Chinquapin  {Nelumho  lutea) 34 

Jaek-in-the-Pulpit  (Arisaema  triphyllum) 38 

Chia  [Salvia  Columhariae) 44 

Wild  Rice  {Zizania  aquatica) 4G 

Islay    (Prunus  ilicifolia) 58 

Hog  Peanut  (Amphicarpaea  monoica)          60 

Mesquit  (Prosopis  jidifora) 62,63 

Jojoba  [Simmondsia  Calif ornica) 70 

Buffalo-Berry  (Shepherd ia  argentea) 84 

Tomato  del  Carapo   (Phgsalis  longi folia) 88 

Service-Berry  (Amelanchier  Canadensis) 00 

American  Hawthorn  (Crataegus  inollis) 93 

Manzanita  (Arctostaphylos  Manzanita) 95 

Oregon  Grape  (B erher is  aqui folium) 97,98 

May  Apple  (Podophyllum  peltatum) 99 

Salal  (GauUheria  Shallon) 103 

Bracken  Shoots  (Pteris  aquilina) 115 


THE  ILLUSTRATIONS  IN  LINE 

PAGE 

Chicory  {Cicliorium  Intyhus) 118 

Milkweed  {Asclepias  Syriaca) 120 

Wild  Rhubarb  {Bumex  liymenosepalus) 122 

Winter  Cress   {Barbarea  vulgaris) 125 

Miner's  Lettuce  {Montia  perfoliata) 130 

New  Jersey  Tea  {Ceanothus  Americanus) 143 

Spicewood  {Lindera  Benzoin) 146 

Yerba  Buena  (Micromeria  Douglasii) 151 

Sumac  {B]nis  glabra)  153 

Lemonade-Berry  {Bhus  integrifolia) 155 

Cassena   {Ilex  vomitoria)  163 

California  Soap-Plant  {Chlorogalutn  pomeridianum)  .       171,172 

Soap-Beriy  {Sapindus  marginatus)         178 

Missouri  Gourd  {Cucurbita  foetidissima) 180 

Bouncing-  Bet  [Saponaria  ofpcinalis) 182 

"Wild  Senna  {Cassia  Marylandica) 187,188 

Boneset   {Eupatorium  perfoliatum) 190 

"Wild  Cherry   {Prunus  serotina) 191 

Dittany  {Cunila  Mariana) 193 

Cascara  Sagrada  {Bhamnus  Cahfornica) 196 

Yerba  Santa  (Eriodictyon  glutinosum)         199 

Yerba  Mansa  {Anemopsis  Calif ornica)         201 

Creosote-Bush  {Larrea  Mexicana) 203 

Canchalagua  {Erythraea  venusta) 208 

Indian  Hemp  {Apocynum  cannabinum)       ....       212,213 

Puccoon  {Litliospernum  canescetis)  224 

Kinnikinnik  {Cornus  sericea) 226 

Sweet  ColtVFoot  {Petasites  palmata) 233 

Candleberry  {Myrica  Carolinensis)  235 

Death  Cup  {Amanita  phalloides) 237 

"Water  Hemlock  {Cicuta  macidata) 238 

Poison  Hemlock   {Conium  macidatum) 241 

Moonseed  {Menispermum  Canadense) 243 

Loco- Weed  {Astragalus  mollissimus) 246 

Jimson-Weed  {Datura  Stramonium) 248 

Mescal-Button  {Lopiiophora  Williamsii) 253 

Swamp  Sumac  {Bhus  venenata) 255 

Poison  Ivy  {Bhus  Taxicodendron) 256 


USEFUL  WILD  PLANTS 


CHAPTER  I 

WILD  PLANTS  WITH  EDIBLE  TUBERS, 

BULBS  OR  ROOTS 

Your  greatest  want  is  you  want  much  of  meat. 
Why  should  you  want?    Behold  the  earth  hath  roots. 

Timon  of  Athens. 

THE  plant  life  of  the  New  World  was  always  a 
subject  of  keen  interest  to  the  early  explorers, 
whose  narratives  not  only  abound  in  quaint  allu- 
sions to  the  new  and  curious  products  of  Flora  that 
came  under  their  notice,  but  also  record  for  many 
of  our  familiar  plants  uses  that  are  a  surprise  to 
most  modern  readers.  In  that  famous  compilation 
of  travelers'  tales,  published  in  England  some  three 
centuries  ago  under  the  title  of  ^^Purchas:  His  Pil- 
grimage," it  is  asserted  of  the  tubers  of  a  certain 
plant  observed  in  New  England  that  *^  boiled  or 
sodden  they  are  very  good  meate";  and  elsewhere  in 
Master  Purchases  volumes  there  is  note  of  the  abun- 

1 


USEFUL  WILD  PLANTS 

dance  of  the  same  tubers,  whicli  were  sometimes  as 
many  as  "forty  together  on  a  string,  some  of  them 
as  big  as  hen's  eggs/' 


Groundnut 
(Apios  tuherosa) 


This  plant  is  readily  identifiable  as  the  Groundnut 
— Apios  tuherosa,  Moench.,  of  the  botanists — of  fre- 
quent  occurrence    in   marshy   grounds    and   moist 


EDIBLE  TUBERS,  BULBS  OR  ROOTS 

thickets  throughout  a  large  part  of  the  United  States 
and  Canada  from  Ontario  to  Florida  and  westward 
to  the  Missouri  River  basin.  It  is  a  climbing  peren- 
nial vine  with  milky  juice  and  leaves  composed  of 
usually  5  to  7  leaflets.  To  the  midsunnner  rambler 
it  betrays  its  presence  by  the  violet-like  fragrance 
exhaled  b}"  bunchy  racemes  of  odd,  brownish-purple 
flowers  of  the  type  of  the  pea.  Neither  history  nor 
tradition  tells  us  what  lucky  Lidian  first  chanced 
upon  the  pretty  vine's  prime  secret,  that  store  of 
roundish  tubers  borne  upon  underground  stems, 
which  made  it  so  valuable  to  the  red  men  that  they 
eventually  took  to  cultivating  it  about  some  of  their 
"vdllages.  Do  not  let  the  name  Groundnut  cause  you 
to  confuse  this  plant  with  the  one  that  yields  the 
familiar  peanut  of  city  street  stands,  which  is  quite 
a  different  thing.  The  Groundnut  is  really  no  nut 
at  all  but  a  starchy  tuber,  which,  when  cooked,  tastes 
somewhat  like  a  white  potato.  Indeed,  Dr.  Asa 
Gray  expressed  the  belief  that  had  civilization 
started  in  the  New  World  instead  of  the  Old,  this 
would  have  been  the  first  esculent  tuber  to  be  de- 
veloped and  would  have  maintained  its  place  in 
the  same  class  with  the  potato. 

Narratives  of  white  travelers  in   our  American 
wilderness  bear  abundant  evidence  to  the  Ground- 

3 


USEFUL  WILD  PLANTS* 

nut's  part  in  saving  them  from  serious  hunger. 
Being  a  vegetable,  it  made  a  grateful  complement 
to  the  enforced  meat  diet  of  pioneers  and  explorers ; 
and  Major  Long,  whose  share  in  making  known  the 
Eocky  Mountain  region  to  the  world  is  commemo- 
rated in  the  name  of  one  of  our  country's  loftiest 
peaks,  tells  in  his  journal  of  his  soldiers'  finding 
the  little  tubers  in  quantities  of  a  peck  or  more 
hoarded  up  in  the  brumal  retreats  of  the  field  mice 
against  the  lean  days  of  winter.  They  may  be 
cooked  either  by  boiling  or  by  roasting. 

Though  the  Groundnut  has  so  far  failed  of  se- 
curing a  footing  in  the  gardens  of  civilization,  there 
is  another  tuber-bearing  plant  growing  wild  in  the 
United  States  that  has  a  recognized  status  in  the 
world's  common  stock  of  vegetables.  This  is  a 
species  of  Sunflower  {Heliantlms  tuherosus,  L.),  the 
so-called  Jerusalem  Artichoke.  It  is  indigenous  in 
moist,  alluvial  ground  from  middle  and  eastern 
Canada  southward  to  Georgia  and  west  to  the  Mis- 
sissippi Valley,  attaining  a  height  at  times  of  10 
feet  or  more.  The  French  explorers  in  the  St. 
Lawrence  region  in  the  early  seventeenth  century 
saw  the  tubers  in  use  by  the  Indians  and  found 
them  so  palatable  when  cooked,  suggesting  arti- 
chokes, that  they  sent  specimens  back  to  France. 

4 


Jerusalem  Artichoke 
(Helianthus   tuherosusj 


USEFUL  WILD  PLANTS 

There  they  caught  the  popular  taste  and  under  the 
name  of  ponimes  de  Canada,  batatas  de  Canada  or 
Canadlennes,  th'eir  cultivation  sjoread.  In  Italy  they 
were  grown  in  the  famous  Farnese  gardens  and 
called,  they  say,  girasole  articiocco,  Sunflower 
artichoke.  A  perverted  pronunciation  of  the  Ital- 
ian by  the  English  (who  became  interested  in 
the  plant  and  were  growing  it  extensively  as  early 
as  1621),  is  the  popularly  accepted  explanation  of  the 
association  of  Jerusalem  with  it.  The  tubers  (borne 
at  the  tip  of  horizontal  rootstocks)  are  in  the  wild 
plant  but  an  inch  or  two  in  diameter,  but  in  cultiva- 
tion they  may  be  much  larger,  as  well  as  better  flav- 
ored. They  reach  their  maximum  development  in  the 
autumn,  when  they  may  be  taken  up  and  stored  in 
pits  for  mnter  use;  or,  since  frost  does  not  injure 
them,  they  may  be  left  in  the  ground  all  winter,  and 
dug  in  the  spring.  In  spite  of  the  Jerusalem  Arti- 
choke's popularity  as  a  vegetable  abroad,  Americans 
have  so  far  been  indifferent  to  it,  except  as  feed  for 
cattle  and  hogs — another  instance  of  the  prophet's 
lack  of  honor  in  his  o^\ti  country.^ 

1  There  are  about  40  species  of  wild  sunflowers  growing  within 
the  borders  of  the  United  States,  and  it  is  not  always  easy  to 
identify  some  given  species.  The  Artichoke  Sunflower  is  a  perennial 
with  hairy,  branching  stems  6  to  12  feet  tall,  and  rough,  ovate  leaves, 
taper  pointed,  toothed  at  the  edges,  4  to  8  inches  long  and  iVo 
to  3  inches  wide,  narrowing  at  the  base  to  a  rather  long  footstalk. 

6 


EDIBLE  TUBERS,  BULBS  OR  ROOTS 

Upon  dry,  elevated  plains  in  and  contiguous  to  the 
Missouri  River  basin  ranging  from  Saskatchewan 
through  Montana  and  the  Uakotas  southward  to 
Texas,  you  may  find,  where  the  plough  has  not  ex- 
terminated it,  another  famous  wild  food  plant — the 
Indian  Bread-root  of  the  American  pioneers,  known 
to  them  also  as  Prairie  Turnip  and  Prairie  Potato, 
and  'to  the  French  Canadians  as  pomme  de  prairie 
and  pomme  hlanclie.  Botanically  it  is  Psoralea  escu- 
lenta,  Pursh,  and  its  smaller  cousin  P.  hypogaea, 
Nutt.  It  is  a  rather  low,  rough-hairy  herb,  resinous- 
dotted,  with  long-stalked  leaves  divided  into  five 
fingers,  and  bearing  dense  spikes  of  small  bluish 
flowers  like  pea  blossoms  in  shape.  The  tuberous 
root,  a  couple  of  inches  in  length,  resembles  a  minia- 
ture sweet  potato.  Its  nutritious  properties  were 
w^ell  knowm  to  Indians  and  such  whites  of  other  days 
as  had  any  respect  for  the  aboriginal  dietary;  and 
Indian  women  found  a  regular  sale  for  it  among  the 
caravans  of  white  traders,  trappers  and  emigrants 
that  traveled  the  far  w^estern  plains  in  pre-railroad 

Flowers  yellow,  both  disk  and  rays,  the  latter  numberinc^  12  to 
20,  and  1  to  li/o  inches  long.  There  is  another  species,  //. 
giganteus,  L.,  one  form  of  which  growing  in  moist  ground  in  western 
Canada  has  thickened,  tuber-like  roots  which  are  similarly  edible. 
These  are  the  "Indian  potato"  of  the  Assiniboine  Indians.  ]\Ir. 
W.  N.  Clute,  in  "The  American  Botanist,"  February,  1018,  noted 
that  the  prairie  species,  Belianthus  laetifJoi'iis,  Pers.,  also  bears 
tubers,  which  are  little  inferior  to  those  of  H.  tuberosus. 

7 


USEFUL  WILD  PLANTS 


times.     The  fresh  tubers,  dug  in  late  summer,  may- 
be eaten  raw  with  a  dressing  of  oil,  vinegar  and 


Indian  Bread-root 
(Psoralea  esciilentaj 

salt,  or  they  may  be  boiled  or  roasted.     The  Indians 
(who  were  habitual  preservers  of  vegetable  foods 

8 


EDIBLE  TUBERS,  BULBS  OR  ROOTS 

for  winter  use)  were  accustomed  to  save  a  portion 
of  the  Bread-root  harvest,  first  slicing  the  tubers 
and  then  drying  them  in  the  sun  or  over  a  slow 
tire.  The  dried  article  was  ground  between  stones 
and  added  to  stews  or  soups,  or  mixed  with  water 
and  baked  in  the  form  of  cakes.  The  heart  of  the 
tuber  is  white  and  granular,  and,  according  to  an 
analysis  quoted  hj  Dr.  Havard,^  contains  70% 
starch,  9%  nitrogenous  matter  and  5%  sugar.  Some 
attempts  have  been  made  to  introduce  it  into  culti- 
vation as  a  rival  of  the  potato,  but  the  latter  is  so 
well  entrenched  in  the  popular  regard  that  nothing 
has  come  of  the  effort.  As  a  resource  for  those 
who  are  cut  off  from  a  potato  supply,  however,  this 
free  offering  of  Nature  should  be  better  known. 
John  Colter,  one  of  Lewis  and  Clarke's  men,  escap- 
ing from  some  Blackfeet  who  w^ere  intent  upon 
killing  him,  lived  for  a  week  entirely  upon  these 
l^)read-root  tubers,  which  he  gathered  as  he  made 
his  painful  wa}^  afoot,  wounded,  and  absolutely 
naked,  back  to  the  settlements  of  the  whites. 

There  are,  by  the  way,  two  wild  species  of  true 
potatoes  indigenous  to  the  mountains  of  New  Mexico 
and  Arizona — Solanum  tuberosum  boreale,  Grav,  and 

2  "Food  Plants  of  the  North  American  Indians,"  Bulletin  Torrey 
Botanical  Club,  Vol.  22,  No.  3. 


USEFUL  WILD  PLANTS 

S.  Jamesii,  Torr.  The  tubers  are  about  the  size  of 
grapes,  are  quite  edible  when  cooked  and  long  ago 
attracted  the  attention  of  the  Navajo  and  other 
Lidians,  who  use  them.  And  curiously  in  contrast 
to  this  the  sweet  potato  of  cultivation  has  a  wild 
cousin  in  the  United  States  {Ipomoea  panduratay 
Meyer)  with  a  huge,  tuberous  root  weighing  some- 
times 20  pounds,  popularly  called  "man-of-the- 
earth.'^  It  is  found  in  dry  ground  throughout  the 
eastern  United  States,  a  trailing  or  slightly  climbing 
vine  with  flowers  like  a  morning  glory.  So  obvious 
a  root  could  hardly  have  escaped  the  Indian  quest 
for  vegetables,  and  as  a  matter  of  fact  it  was  eaten 
to  some  extent  after  long  roasting. 

There  is  a  plant  family — the  Umhelliferae — that 
has  given  to  our  gardens  carrots,  parsnips,  celery 
and  parsley.  It  includes  also  a  number  of  wild 
members  with  food  value,  occurring  principally  in 
the  Eocky  Mountain  region  westward  to  the  Pacific. 
Among  these  the  genus  Peucedannm,  represented  in 
western  North  America  by  over  50  species,  is  note- 
worthy because  of  the  edible  tuberous  roots  of 
several  species.  Of  these  the  folloAving  may  be 
noted,  adopting  Dr.  Havard's  enumeration  in  his 
paper  above  quoted:  P.  Cmibyi,  C.  and  K.  (the 
chuklusa  of  the  Spokane  Indians) ;  P.  eurycarpum, 

10 


EDIBLE  TUBERS,  BULBS  OR  ROOTS 


C.  and  E.  (the  skelaps  of  the  Spokanes) ;  P.  Geyeri^ 
Wats.;  P.  amhignum,  T.  and  G.,  P.  cous,  Wats, 
(the  cow-as  of  the  In- 
dians). The  tubers  may 
be  consumed  raw  and  in 
that  state  have  a  celery 
flavor.  The  most  usual 
method  of  use  among  the 
Indians,  however,  was  to 
remove  the  rind,  dry  the 
inside  portion,  and  pul- 
verise it.  The  flour 
would  then  be  mixed 
with  water,  flattened  into 
cakes  and  dried  in  the 
sun  or  baked.  These 
cakes,  according  to 
Palmer,^  were  custom- 
arily about  half  an  inch 
thick  but  a  yard  long  by 
a  foot  wide,  with  a  hole 
in  the  middle,  by  which 
they  could  be  tied  to  the  saddle  of  the  traveler.  The 
taste  of  such  cakes  is  rather  like  stale  biscuits.     On 

3  Edward     Palmer,     "Food     Products     of     the     North     American 
Indians,"  Ann.  Kept.  U.  S.  Dcpt.   Agriculture,   1870. 

11 


Biscuit-Root 
( Peucedanum  8p.) 


«* 7.*  -n 

it*  '••        '/. 


Biscuit-Root 
(Peucedanum  amhiguum) 


12 


EDIBLE  TUBERS,  BULBS  OR  ROOTS 

this  account,  the  Peucadanums  were  commonly 
termed  Biscuit-root  by  the  white  Americans.  The 
Canadian  French  call  them  racine  hlanche.  The 
genus  is  marked  by  leaves  pinnate  in  some  species, 
finely  dissected  in  others,  sometimes  stemless  and 
never  tall,  and  with  small  white  or  yellow  flowers 
disposed  in  umbels  like  those  of  the  carrot  or  parsley. 
Novices,  however,  should  be  warned  that  the  Um- 
belliferae  include  several  poisonous  species,  and  the 
investigator  should  be  well  assured  of  the  identity 
of  his  plant  before  experimenting  with  it. 

Then  there  is  Yamp,  of  this  same  family,  and 
cousin  to  the  caraway.  It  is  the  botanists'  Carum 
Gairdneri,  B.  and  H. — a  slender,  smooth  herb,  some- 
times four  feet  high,  with  scanty  pinnate  leaves  3-  to 
7-parted  and  white  flowers  like  the  carrot's,  growing 
usually  on  dry  hillsides  in  mountainous  country 
from  British  Columbia  to  Southern  California  and 
eastward  to  the  Rockies.  The  clustered,  spindle- 
shaped  roots  are  about  half  an  inch  thick,  and  raw 
have  an  agreeable,  nutty  taste,  with  a  considerable 
sugar  content.  Not  only  Indians  but  white  settlers 
also  have  proved  the  nutritive  value  of  this  root, 
eating  it  either  raw  or  cooked.  In  meadows  and 
along  stream  borders  in  Central  California  a  nearly 
related  species  {Carum  Kelloggii,  Gray)  frequently 

13 


USEFUL  WILD  PLANTS 

occurs  and  goes  among  the  whites  by  the  name  of 
Wild  Anise."*  Its  roots  bear  in  greater  or  less 
abundance  flattish  tubers,  which  are  ser\dceable  in 
the  same  way  as  Yamp. 

A  more  famous  root  of  the  Pacific  Slope  than 
Yamp  is  the  Bitterroot  (Lewisia  rediviva,  Pursh), 
the  racine  amere  of  the  French  explorers,  and  found 
from  Arizona  north -to  Montana  (where  it  has  given 
name  to  the  Bitterroot  Mountains  and  Bitterroot 
Eiver)  and  w^est  to  the  Pacific.  It  is  a  member  of 
the  Portulaca  family,  with  showy,  many-petaled 
white  or  pink  blossoms  sometimes  two  inches  across 
and  opening  in  the  sunshine  close  -to  the  ground,  in 
form  like  a  spoked  wheel.  Montana  has  adopted  it 
as  her  State  flower.  It  is  one  of  the  marvels  in  the 
history  of  alimentation  that  the  unappetizing  ro'ots 
of  this  plant,  intensely  bitter  when  raw  and  smelling 
like  tobacco  when  boiling,  should  have  secured  a 
stable  place  in  any  human  bill  of  fare.  Neverthe- 
less, by  the  Indians  of  the  far  Northwest  it  has  been 
extensively  consumed  from  time  immemorial,  and 
explorers'  journals  contain  many  references  to  ab- 

4  Not  to  be  confused  with  the  mis-called  Sweet  Anise,  which 
is  really  Fennel,  the  introduced  ForniciiJum  vulfiare.  The  latter  is 
abundantly  clothed  with  large,  finely  dissected  leaves  of  a  pronounced 
licorice  flavor  and  has  vellow  flowers;  while  the  Carum  bears  white 
flowers  and  its  leaves  are  sparse  and  pinnate  with  simple  seg- 
ments. 

14 


BiTTERROOT 

(Lewisia  rediviva) 


15 


USEFUL  WILD  PLANTS 

original  '^spreads''  put  before  them  in  which  spat- 
lum,  as  the  Oregon  Indians  called  it,  had  a  prominent 
place.  Boiling  has  the  effect  of  dissipating  the 
bitterness;  and  the  white  heart  of  the  root,  which  is 
starchy  and  mucilaginous,  is  certainly  nutritious, 
though  ideas  as  to  its  palatability  differ.  The  In- 
dian practice  is  to  dig  the  roots  in  the  spring,  at 
which  time  the  brownish  bark  slips  off  more  easily 
than  after  the  plant  has  flowered;  and  as  'the  bitter 
principle  is  mainly  resident  in  the  bark,  it  is  desir- 
able to  reject  this  before  cooking.  A  noteworthy 
character  of  the  root  is  its  tenacity  of  life.  Speci- 
mens that  have  been  dipped  in  boiling  water,  dried 
and  laid  away  in  an  herbarium  for  over  a  year, 
have  been  knovni  to  revive  on  being  put  in  the 
ground  again,  to  grow  and  to  produce  flowers.  An 
Eastern  cousin  of  the  Bitterroot  is  the  charming 
woodland  flower  of  early  spring  called  Spring 
Beauty  {Claytonia  Virginica,  L.).  It  rises  from  a 
small,  deep-seated,  round  tuber  of  starchy  composi- 
tion and  nutty  flavor,  which  might  serve  at  a  pinch 
to  stave  off  starvation,  and  has  indeed  so  served  the 
aborigines. 


16 


CHAPTER  II 

WILD  PLANTS  WITH  EDIBLE  TUBERS, 
BULBS  OR  ROOTS  {Continued) 

IT  is  a  character  of  the  Lily  family  that  the  plants 
are  usually  produced  from  subterranean  bulbs  or 
corms,  and  many  such  growing  Avild  in  the  LTnited 
States  are  of  proved  nutritiousness  and  palatability. 
Among  these,  for  instance,  are  species  of  Allium, 
wild  onion  or  leek,  one  of  which  particularly  (^4. 
tricoccum,  Ait.)  is  recommended  by  those  who  have 
tried  it  for  the  sweetness  and  flavor  of  its  young 
bulbs.  It  inhabits  rich  woodlands  of  the  eastern 
Atlantic  States  north  of  South  Carolina,  its  umbel 
of  white  flowers  borne  on  naked  stalks,  appearing 
in  June  or  July  after  its  rather  broad,  odorous  leaves 
have  withered  away.  It  is  the  Pacific  Coast,  how- 
ever, that  has  a  special  fame  for  edible  wild  bulbs, 
many  of  which  are  knoA\TL  to  the  world  at  large  only 
for  the  beauty  of  their  flowers.  There  the  Indians 
have,  from  before  history  began,  been  consuming 
such  bulbs  either  raw  or  cooked.     To  some  extent, 

17 


Wild  Leek 

(Allium  tricoccum) 


18 


CO 


-I) 


Ztj 


o 


1- 
o 


■»1  ^ 


\ 


EDIBLE  TUBERS,  BULBS  OR  ROOTS 


also,  they  have  been  dra^\^l  upon  for  food  b}^  white 
travelers  and  settlers — the  most  palatable  species 
being  of  the  genera  Calochortus,  Brodiaea  and 
Camassia,  and  com- 
monlv  called  ' '  In- 
dian  potatoes."  The 
genus  Calochortus 
furnishes  the  flower 
gardens  of  both  hemi- 
spheres with  the 
charming  Mariposa 
Tulips,  and  few  who 
enjoy  their  beauty  re- 
alize the  gastronomic 
possibilities  of  the 
homely,  farinaceous 
corms  out  of  which 
the  lovely  blossoms 
spring.  The  species 
most  w^idely  known  as 
a  food  source  is  Calo- 
chortus Niittallii,  T. 
and  G.,  the  Sego  Lily,  which  has  the  distinction  of 
being  Utah's  State  flower.  It  may  be  recognized  by 
its  showy,  tulip-shaped  blossoms,  whitish  or  lilac 
with  a  purple  spot  above  the  yellow  heart  of  the 

19 


Sego  Lily 
(Calochortus  NtittaUii) 


USEFUL  WILD  PLANTS 

flower,  the  leaves  few  and  grass-like.  It  is  in- 
digenous to  an  extensive  territory  ranging  from 
Dakota  to  Mexico  and  westward  to  the  Pacific 
Coast.  It  w^as,  I  believe,  a  common  article  of  diet 
among  the  first  Mormons  in  Utah,  under  the 
name  "Wild  Sago,"  through  a  misunderstanding, 
perhaps,  of  the  word  "Sego,"  w^iich  is  the  Ute 
Indian  term  for  this  plant.  A  California  species 
(C.  venustuSj  Benth.)  wath  white  or  lilac  flowers 
variously  tinged  or  blotched  wdth  red,  yellow  or 
brown,  is  also  highly  esteemed  for  its  sw^eet  corms. 
The  cooking  may  be  done  by  the  simple  process 
known  to  campers  of  roasting  in  hot  ashes,  or  by 
steaming  in  pits,  a  method  tHat  will  be  described 
later  on. 

Brodiaea  is  a  genus  comprising  numerous  species, 
of  wdiich  the  so-called  California  Hyacinth,  Grass- 
nut  or  Wild  Onion  {B.  caintata,  Benth.),  common 
throughout  the  State,  is  perhaps  the  best  kno^vn. 
Its  clustered,  pale  blue  flow^ers  bunched  at  the  tip  of 
a  slender  stem  are  a  familiar  sight  in  grassy  places 
in  spring.  The  bulbs  are  about  the  size  of  marbles 
and  noticeably  mucilaginous.  Eaten  raw  they  seem 
rather  flat  at  first,  but  the  taste  growls  on  one  very 
quickly.  They  are  also  ver}^  good  if  boiled  slowly 
for  a  half  hour  or  so.     The  Harvest  Brodiaea  (B. 

20 


EDIBLE  TUBERS,  BULBS  OR  ROOTS 


grandiflora,  Smith),  with  clusters  of  blue,  funnel- 
shaped  flowers  like  little  blue  lilies,  is  another 
familiar  species 
common  in  fields 
and  grassy  glades 
from  Central  Cali- 
fornia northward  to 
"Washington.  Its 
bulbs  are  best  cook- 
ed, as  by  slow  roast- 
ing  in  hot  ashes, 
which  develops  the 
sweetness. 

But  the  liliaceous 
bulb  that  has  enter- 
ed to  the  most  im- 
portant extent  in- 
to the  menus  both 
of  aborigines  and 
white  pioneers  is 
the  Camas  or  Qua- 
mash — *'the  queen 
root  of  this  clime," 
as  Father  De  Smet 
puts  it  in  his  ^'Oregon  Missions."  It  is  a  hand- 
some   plant    when    in    flower,    which    is    in    early 

21 


USEFUL  WILD  PLANTS 

summer.  The  6-parted,  usually  blue  blossoms,  an 
inch  or  more  across,  occur  in  ample  racemes  at  the 
top  of  stalks  a  foot  or  two  high ;  the  leaves  all  radical 
and  grass-like.  The  bulb  somewhat  resembles 
a  small  onion,  but  is  almost  tasteless  in  the  raw  state. 
The  range  of  the  plant  is  from  Idaho  and  Utah  west- 
ward to  central  California,  Oregon  and  Washington ; 
and  when  undisturbed  it  grows  so  abundantly  in  open 
meadows  and  swampy  lands  as  to  convert  them  at  a 
distance  into  the  appearance  of  blue  lakes  of  water. 
John  K.  To\\msend,  a  Philadelphian  who  published 
an  interesting  narrative  of  a  journey  to  the  Rocky 
Mountains  in  1839,  has  left  us  a  pleasant,  old-fash- 
ioned picture  of  a  Camas  feast  in  central  Idaho. 
'^In  the  afternoon,"  he  writes,  'Sve  arrived  at 
Kamas  Prairie,  so  called  from  a  vast  abundance  of 
this  succulent  root  which  it  produces.  The  plain  is 
a  beautiful  level  one  of  about  a  mile  over,  hemmed 
in  by  low,  rocky  hills,  and  in  spring  the  pretty  blue 
flowers  of  the  Kamas  are  said  to  give  it  a  peculiar 
and  very  pleasing  appearance.  .  .  .  We  encamped 
here  near  a  small  branch  of  the  Mallade  River;  and 
soon  after  all  hands  took  their  kettles  and  scattered 
over  the  prairie  to  dig  a  mess  of  Kamas.  We  were 
of  course  eminently  successful,  and  were  furnished 
with  an  excellent  and  wholesome  meal.    When  boiled, 

22 


EDIBLE  TUBERS,  BULBS  OR  ROOTS 

this  little  root  is  palatable  and  somewhat  resembles 
the  taste  of  the  common  potato.  The  Indian  method 
of  preparing  it,  however,  is  the  best. '^ 

This  method,  which  embodies  really  the  principle 
of  our  present  day  tireless  cooker  and  has  been  em- 
ployed by  the  aborigines  from  time  immemorial  for 
cooking  numberless  things,  is  briefly  this :  A  hole  of 
perhaps  three  feet  in  diameter  and  a  foot  or  so  in 
depth  is  dug  in  the  ground  and  lined,  bottom  and 
sides,  with  flat  stones.  A  fire  of  brushwood  is  then 
maintained  in  the  hole  until  the  stones  are 
thoroughly  heated  through,  when  the  embers  are  re- 
moved and  fresh  grass  or  green  leaves  (or,  failing 
these,  dampened  dried  grass)  are  spread  upon  the 
hot  rocks  and  ashes.  Upon  this  the  bulbs  are  laid, 
covered  with  another  layer  of  verdure  or  wet  hay; 
and  the  whole  is  then  topped  with  a  mound  of  earth. 
In  this  air-tight  oven  the  bulbs  are  left  to  steam 
for  a  day  and  a  night,  or  even  longer.  The  pit  is 
then  opened  and  the  Camas  will  be  found  to  be  soft, 
dark  brown  in  color,  and  sweet — almost  chestnutty — 
in  taste.  The  cooked  mass,  if  pressed  into  cakes 
and  then  dried  in  the  sun,  may  be  preserved  for 
future  use. 

There  are  several  species  of  Camas,  but  the  one 
best  known   is   the   botanist's   Camassia   esciiloita, 

23 


Camas 
(Camassia  esculenta) 


24 


EDIBLE  TUBERS,  BULBS  OR  ROOTS 

Lindl.,  the  plant  of  the  preceding  paragraphs.  A 
closely  allied  species  is  Camassia  Leiclitlinii  (Baker) 
Gov.,  connnon  in  northern  California  and  Oregon. 
White  settlers,  in  the  days  before  their  orchards  and 
gardens  were  established,  found  in  Camas  a  wel- 
come addition  to  their  meager  and  monotonous  bill 
of  fare,  and  Camas  pie  was  a  not  uncommon  dish  in 
many  an  old  time  Oregon  or  California  household. 

Related  to  the  Lily  tribe  is  the  Sedge  family,  of 
which  two  or  three  species  are  utilizable  for  human 
food.  One  of  these  is  a  bulrush  of  wide  occurrence 
in  the  United  States  {Scirpns  lacustris,  L.),  the  Far 
Western  form  of  which  is  commonly  kno^^^l  as  Tule. 
Its  tuberous  roots  are  starchy  and  may  be  ground, 
after  drying,  into  a  white,  nutritious  flour.  They 
may  also  be  chewed  to  advantage  by  travelers  in 
arid  regions  as  a  preventive  of  thirst.  Of  more 
worth,  however,  are  two  species  of  Cyperus — C. 
rotundiis,  L.,  and  C\  esculentiis,  L.  The  former, 
commonly  known  as  Nut-grass,  is  a  denizen  of  fields 
in  the  Southern  Atlantic  States;  the  latter,  popu- 
larly called  Cliufa,  is  abundant  in  moist  fields  on 
both  our  seaboards.  Both,  also,  are  widely  dis- 
tributed in  the  Old  World.  Like  all  of  their  genus, 
they  are  distinguished  by  triangular  stems,  naked  ex- 
cept for  a  few  grass-like  leaves  at  the  base,  and  bear- 

25 


ClIUFA 

(Cyperus  esculentusj 


26 


EDIBLE  TUBERS,  BULBS  OR  ROOTS 

ing  at  the  summit  of  the  stem  an  umbel  of  incon- 
spicuous, purplish-green  florets.  The  dietetic  in- 
terest in  them  centers  in  the  rootstocks,  which  bear 
small  tubers  of  a  pleasant,  nutty  flavor,  and  both 
white  men  and  Indians  have  approved  them,  as  well 
as  the  white  men^s  pigs.  The  Chufa's  hard  tubers, 
especially,  are  sweet  and  tasty,  and  in  some  parts 
of  the  South  have  been  considered  worthy  of  cultiva- 
tion, though  by  reason  of  rapid  increase  and  difficulty 
to  eradicate,  the  plant  has  a  tendency  to  become  a 
bad  weed.  We  get  the  name  Chufa  from  Spain, 
where  the  tul)ers  are  used  in  emulsion  as  a  refresh- 
ment in  the  same  class  with  ''almonds  in  the  milk, 
pasties,  strawberries,  azaroles,  sugar  icing  and 
sherbets,"  according  to  some  lines  of  a  Spanish  poem 
I  ran  across  the  other  dav.^ 

Of  quite  restricted  occurrence  in  the  United  States, 
but  worthy  of  mention  because  of  its  importance,  is 
a  member  of  a  peculiar  natural  order  of  plants 
called  Cycads.  They  resemble  the  palms  in  some 
respects  and  in  others  the  ferns,  their  leaves,  for 
instance,  having  a  fashion  of  unrolling  from  base  to 
apex  in  the  manner  of  fern  croziers.  Many  species 
inhabit  tropical  America,  and  two  reach  the  southern 

1  "Almondrucos   y   pastelos, 
Cliiifas,  fresas  y  acerolas, 
Garapiiias  y  sorbetes." 

27 


USEFUL  WILD  PLANTS 

tip  of  our  oomitiy,  being  indigenous  to  the  Florida 
peninsula.  One,  known  to  botanists  as  Zamia 
pumila,  L.,  occurs  in  dense,  damp  woods  of  central 


Florida  Arrowroot 
(Zamia  sp.) 

Florida:  the  other,  Z.  Floridana,  DC,  is  a  wilding 
of  the  open,  dry,  pine  region  of  the  east  coast  of 
southern  Florida.  They  are  popularly  called  Coon- 
tie  or  Coontah,  the  Indian  name.     The  stiff,  fern- 

28 


EDIBLE  TUBERS,  BULBS  OR  ROOTS 

like  foliage  arises  in  a  clump  from  the  crown  (at 
the  ground  level)  of  a  thick,  subterranean  stem  which 
is  exceedingly  rich  in  starch.  A  nutritious  flour 
made  from  the  stem-  and  root-content  of  Zamia  has 
had  some  vogue  in  the  shops  under  the  name  of 
Florida  Arro^vroot.  It  has  long  been  a  staple  article 
of  diet  with  the  Seminole  Indians,  and  the  plant  has 
even  found  its  w^ay  into  the  literature  of  juvenile 
adventure,  as  readers  of  boy  romances  may  recall. 

Similar  in  name  to  Coontie — indeed,  probably  the 
same  name  applied  to  a  diiferent  food — is  Conte  or 
Contee,  mentioned  by  William  Bartram  ^  as  served 
to  him  by  the  Seminoles,  and  prepared  from  the 
starchy,  tuberous  roots  of  the  China-brier  {Smilax 
Pseudo-China,  L.).  This  dish  was  made  by  chopping 
up  the  root,  pounding  the  pieces  thoroughly  in  a 
mortar,  then  mixing  wdth  w^ater  and  straining 
through  a  sort  of  basket  filter.  The  sediment  w^as 
dried  and  appeared  as  a  fine,  reddish  meal.  A  small 
quantity  of  this  mixed  with  w^arm  w^ater  and  honey, 
says  Bartram,  ^^w^hen  cool,  becomes  a  beautiful, 
delicious  jelly,  very  nourishing  and  wholesome. 
They  also  mix  it  wdth  fine  corn  flour,  w^hicli,  being 
fried  in  fresh  bear's  grease,  makes  very  good  hot 

2  "Travels  throiijjh  Xortli  and  South  Carolina,  Georgia,  East  and 
West  Florida,  etc.,"  177.3,  Chap.  VII. 

29 


COXTE 

(Smilax  Pseudo-China) 


30 


EDIBLE  TUBERS,  BULBS  OR  ROOTS 

cakes  or  fritters.''  So,  you  see,  the  wilderness  as 
well  as  the  town  had  its  gastronomic  delicacies,  and 
dallied  with  dyspepsia.  The  China-brier,  sometimes 
called  Bull-brier,  is  a  perennial  woody  vine  of  dry 
thickets  from  Maryland  to  the  Gulf  of  Mexico, 
adorned  in  autumn  with  showv  umbels  of  black  ber- 
ries  not  known  to  be  edible.  The  whites  have  used 
the  knotty,  tuberous  roots  as  the  basis  of  a  home- 
made rootbeer  in  association  with  molasses  and 
parched  corn. 

Our  waters,  too,  yield  some  native  roots  of 
economic  worth.  Among  these  aquatic  wildings  per- 
haps the  commonest  is  the  Arrowhead  {Sagittaria 
variabilis,  Eng.),  so  called  from  the  shape  of  its 
leaves.  It  is  found  in  swamps,  ditches,  ponds  and 
shallow  waters  very  generally  throughout  North 
America  from  the  Atlantic  to  the  Pacific  and  from 
Canada  to  Mexico,  flowering  in  summer  with  3- 
petaled  white  blossoms  arranged  in  verticels  of  three. 
All  Indians,  wdiether  of  the  Atlantic  Slope,  the 
Middle  West  or  the  Pacific  Coast,  have  set  great 
store  by  the  plant  because  of  its  starchy,  white 
tubers,  somewhat  resembling  small  potatoes,  de- 
veloped in  autumn  at  the  ends  of  the  rootstocks.  It 
is  nearly  related  to  a  cultivated  vegetable  of  the 
Chinese — Sarjittaria    Sinensis,    a    native    of    Asia. 

31 


Arrowhead 
( Hagittaria  variahilis) 


32 


EDIBLE  TUBERS,  BULBS  OR  ROOTS 

Lewis  and  Clarke,  in  their  narrative,  speak  of  an 
island  in  the  Colnmbia  River,  which  they  call  AVap- 
patoo  Island,  because  of  the  numerous  ponds  in  its 
interior  abounding  in  the  Arrowhead  plant,  which 
in  the  Indian  language  is  termed  Wappatoo.  Those 
doughty  explorers  have  given  a  picturesque  descrip- 
tion of  the  aboriginal  Arrowhead  business  in  the 
Columbia  River  country  of  Oregon  as  it  was  a 
century  ago.  ^^The  bulb,"  to  quote  from  their  Nar- 
rative, *^is  a  great  article  of  food  and  almost  the 
staple  of  commerce  on  the  Columbia.  .  .  .  It  is  col- 
lected by  the  women,  who  employ  for  the  purpose 
canoes  .  .  .  sufficient  to  contain  a  single  person  and 
several  bushels  of  roots,  yet  so  very  light  a  woman 
can  carry  them  with  ease.  She  takes  one  of  these 
canoes  into  a  pond  where  the  water  is  as  high  as 
the  breast,  and  by  means  of  her  toes  separates  from 
the  root  the  bulb  which  on  being  freed  from  the  mud 
rises  immediately  to  the  surface  of  the  water  and  is 
thrown  into  the  canoe."  Roasted  or  boiled,  the 
tubers  become  soft,  palatable  and  digestible,  and  to 
travelers  in  the  wild  make  a  fairly  good  substitute 
for  bread. 

Also  as  bread  upon  the  waters  is  that  majestic 
aquatic,  native  to  quiet  streams  and  ponds  of  the  in- 
terior United  States  from  the  Great  Lakes  to  the 

33 


USEFUL  WILD  PLANTS 

Gulf,  the  AmGrican  Lotus  or  Water  Chinquapin 
{Nelumho  hdea,  Pers.).  It  is  easily  recognized  by 
its  huge,  round  leaves  (sometimes  two  feet  across 
and  a  favorite  sunning  place,  by  the  way,  for 
water  snakes)  lifted  high  above  the  water  on  foot- 


Water  Chinquapin 
CSelumho  luteaj 

stalks  attached  to  the  center  of  the  concave  leaf,  and 
its  showy,  pale  yellow,  papery  flowers  of  numerous 
petals  curving  upward  to  be  succeeded  by  curious, 
flat-topped,  pitted  seed-vessels.  It  is  an  American 
cousin  of  the  famous  lotus  of  India  and  oriental  ro- 
mance.    To  the  American  Indian,  however,  it  seems 

34 


EDIBLE  TUBERS,  BULBS  OR  ROOTS 

never  to  have  appealed  as  a  flower  of  contemplation, 
but  quite  prosaically  as  an  addition — and  an  im- 
portant one — to  his  dinner  table.  In  this  role  he 
found  it  trebly  useful:  iirst,  because  of  the  young 
leaves  and  footstalks  which  may  be  turned  to  ac- 
count in  the  same  way  a«  spinach;  secondly,  because 
of  the  ripened  seeds  which,  roasted  or  boiled,  are 
palatable  and  nutritious  with  a  taste  that  has  given 
rise  to  the  popular  name  Water  Chinquapin;  and 
thirdly,  because  of  the  large  tubers,  weighing  some- 
times half  a  pound  each,  which,  when  baked,  are 
sweet  and  mealv  with  a  flavor  somewhat  like  a  sw^eet 
potato.  This  is  the  plant  whose  flower  is  rather 
exuberantly  referred  to  by  Longfellow  in  ^'Evan- 
geline ' ' : 

"Resplendent  in  beauty,  the  lotus 

Lifted  her  golden  crown  above  the  heads  of  the  boatmen." 

Though  the  customary  habitat  of  this  Nelumbo  is 
the  Mis'sissippi  basin,  some  isolated  stations  for  it 
are  known  near  the  north  Atlantic  coast,  notably  in 
the  Connecticut  and  Delaware  Valleys,  suggesting 
the  view  that  it  mav  have  been  introduced  into  such 
localities  and  cultivated  by  the  Indian  inhabitants. 
However  the  fact  mav  be,  its  value  as  a  food  source 
is  such  as  would  have  warranted  such  introduction. 

35 


USEFUL  WILD  PLANTS 

The  aroids — a  plant  family  abundant  in  the  tropics 
and  of  which  several  species,  as  the  taro  of  the 
Pacific,  possess  nutritious,  starchy,  tuberous  roots  of 
importance  as  human  foods — are  represented  in  the 
United  States  by  two  or  three  plants  of  proved  value. 
One  of  these  is  the  Grolden  Club  {Orontium 
aquaticum,  L.),  whose  flower  spikes  of  a  rich,  bright 
yellow,  lifted  above  velvet}^  green,  strap-like  leaves 
from  which  water  rolls  as  from  a  duck's  back,  are 
a  familiar  sight  in  the  spring  in  ponds  and  marshes 
along  the  Atlantic  coast.  The  bulbous  rootstock, 
when  cooked,  is  possessed  of  considerable  nutriment, 
but  owing  to  its  deep  seat  in  the  muck  is  difficult  of 
extraction.  The  ripened  seeds,  which  resemble  peas, 
are  more  easily  gathered,  and  both  whites  and 
Indians  have  included  them  in  their  diet.  Accord- 
ing to  Peter  Kalm,  an  observant  and  inquisitive 
Swede  whose  book  of  travels  in  the  North  American 
Colonies  in  1748  is  still  an  interesting  narrative  to 
any  who  enjoy  a  look  into  the  vanished  past,  the 
dried  seeds,  not  the  fresh,  should  be  used,  and  they 
must  be  boiled  and  re-boiled  repeatedly  before  they 
are  fit  to  eat ;  yet  his  Swedish  acquaintances  thought 
it  worth  their  while  to  do  so. 

Of  even  greater  interest  is  another  aroid,  the 
Arrow  Arum  or  Virginia  Tuckaho  (Peltandra  Vir- 

36 


EDIBLE  TUBERS,  BULBS  OR  ROOTS 

ginica,  [L]  Kuntli,  and  perhaps  the  nearly  related 
species  P.  alba,  Raf.,  of  the  Southern  States,  a  plant 
with  large,  arrow-shaped  leaves  and  inconspicuous 
flowers  enveloped  in  a  green  spathe.  PeUandra  Vir- 
ginica  is  connnon  in  shallow  waters  of  the  Atlantic 
seaboard  from  Canada  to  Florida.  I  have  never 
dug  up  the  rootstock,  about  which  I  find  the  recorded 
descriptions  differ.  Havard,  in  his  "Food  Plants 
of  the  North  American  Indians,"  describes  it,  doubt- 
less rightly,  as  short,  deep-seated,  sometimes  six 
inches  in  diameter  and  weighing  five  or  six  pounds. 
As  in  the  case  of  all  aroids,  the  raw  flesh  of  the  root- 
stock  is  exceedingly  acrid,  indeed  poisonous;  but 
when  dried  and  thoroughly  cooked,  it  is  found  to  have 
lost  this  objectionable  principle,  and  in  this  state  is 
a  starchy  food  of  proved  nutrition.  I  think  it  is  this 
plant  that  is  meant  in  Purchas's  Pilgrimage, 
where  in  the  delicious  English  of  the  day  record  is 
made  of  the  Virginians'  ''Tockawhough  ...  of  the 
greatness  and  taste  of  a  potato,  which  passeth  a  fiery 
purgation  before  they  may  eate  it,  being  poison 
whiles  it  is  raw.''  The  approved  treatment  ai:)pears 
to  have  been  to  steam  it  in  the  aboriginal  heated  pit, 
covered  over  with  earth  and  left  undisturbed  for  a 
day  or  two.  Similarly  the  familiar  Jack-in-the-Pul- 
pit    {Arisaema    triphyllum,    Torr.),    whose    small, 

37 


USEFUL  WILD  PLANTS 


turnip-shaped  corm,  bitten  into  raw,  stings  the 
tongue  like  red  hot  needles,  becomes  thoroughly 
tamed  when  dried  and  cooked,  and  its  starchy  con- 


J  N^    .. 


f,,^^)  jy^ 


^\%'^ 


JACK-IX-THE-PULPIT 

(Arisaema  triphyllumj 

tent  was  once  a  source  of  bread  to  the  Seneca  In- 
dians. 

The  name  Tuckaho  has  also  been  applied  to  a  sub- 

38 


EDIBLE  TUBERS,  BULBS  OR  ROOTS 

terranoan  fungus  (Pachyma  Cocos,  Fries),  often 
found  attached  to  old  tree  roots  in  tlie  Southern 
States.  It  resembles  roughly  a  cocoanut,  though 
somethnes  of  more  irregular  shape.  Inside  the 
browii  rind  is  a  finn,  white  meat,  which  would  be 
quite  insipid,  except  for  a  trace  of  sweetness  that 
is  present.  Its  most  common  name  is  Indian  Bread, 
because  of  the  Indian  use  of  it  as  a  food.  It  is  de- 
void of  starch  and  seems  of  questionable  nutritive 
value.  Another  subterranean  parasite,  though  not  a 
fungus,  that  is  of  genuine  worth  as  an  edible,  is  the 
curious  Sand  Food  {Animohroma  Sonorae,  Torr.), 
abundant  in  sandhills  of  southern.  Arizona  and  across 
the  Mexican  line  in  the  dunes  bordering  on  the  Gulf 
of  California,  where  it  is  called  camote  de  los 
medanos.  It  consists  underground  of  a  slender, 
fleshy,  leafless  but  scaly  stem,  two  to  three  feet  long, 
while  above  the  sand  during  the  flowering  season 
in  the  spring  is  a  small,  funnel-like  top  on  which 
the  tiny,  purple  blossoms  appear.  After  flowering, 
the  overground  part  mthers  and  disappears,  and  the 
plant  presents  no  sign  of  its  existence  except  to  the 
experts  who  know  where  to  dig.  The  subterranean 
stem  is  tender,  juicy  and  sweet — a  refreshing  and 
luscious  morsel,  meat  and  drink  in  one.  It  may  be 
eaten  either  raw  or  roasted,  and  is  relished  by  red- 

39 


USEFUL  WILD  PLANTS 

men  and  white  alike.  Mr.  Carl  Lumlioltz  in  his  in- 
teresting book  ''New  Trails  in  Mexico"  tells  of  an 
Indian  who  lived  almost  entirely  on  Ammobroma, 
being  able  to  find  it  out  of  season — a  remarkable 
testimony  to  the  nutritiousness  of  the  plant  and  the 
abstemiousness  of  the  Indian  ! 

The  creeping  rootstocks  of  the  common  Cat-tail 
{Typha  latifolia,  L.)  which  covers  great  areas  of  our 
swamp  lands  throughout  the  United  States,  hold  a 
nutritious  secret,  too,  for  they  contain  a  core  of  al- 
most solid  starch.  They  w^ere  dug  and  dried  in  for- 
mer times  by  IndianB,  wdio  ground  them  into  a  meal. 
A  recent  analvsis  of  such  meal  bv  one  of  the  Gov- 
ernment  chemists  showed  it  to  contain  about  the 
same  amount  of  protein  as  is  in  rice-  and  corn- 
flours, but  less  fat.  It  may  make  a  useful  mixture 
with  the  ordinarv  flours,  and  be  substituted  for  corn- 
starch  in  puddings,  as  it  seems  entirely  palatable. 


40 


CHAPTER  III 

WILD  SEEDS  OF  FOOD  VALUE,  AND  HOW 
THEY  HAVE  BEEN  UTILIZED 

The  bounteous  housewife,  nature,  on  each  bush 
Lays  her  full  mess  before  j^ou. 

Shakespeare. 

THE  Spanish  conquest  of  Mexico  and  Peru 
brought  to  the  knowledge  of  the  white  race  a 
number  of  vegetable  foods  that  are  to-day  on  every 
American  table — such  as  Indian  corn,  the  potato, 
the  pepper,  and  certain  varieties  of  beans.  Others 
are  still  unknown  to  the  world  at  large.  Among 
the  latter  that  Cortes  found  in  every-day  use  in 
Mexico  was  a  square-stemmed,  blue-flowered  herb, 
which  the  chroniclers  of  that  time  called  Chian  or 
Cilia.  It  seems  to  have  ranked  in  popularity  with 
staples  like  maize,  frijoles,  mague}^  cacao  and  chili; 
and  was  gro^\^l  with  these  in  the  fields  and  floating 
gardens  of  the  Aztecs,  for  the  sake  of  the  small  but 
numerous  nutritious  seeds  of  a  pleasant,  nutty 
flavor.     Writers  on  the  products  of  the  New  World 

41 


USEFUL  WILD  PLANTS 

in  the  first  couple  of  centuries  of  the  Spanish  domina- 
tion always  speak  of  Chia  with  respect.  Later,  when 
upper  California  came  in  for  settlement,  the  diarist 
of  PortolcVs  expedition  to  the  Bay  of  San  Francisco 
specifies  it  as  among  the  gifts  offered  by  the  Indians 
to  their  white  visitors;  and  archaeologists,  grubbing 
in  prehistoric  graves  in  Southern  California,  have 
turned  up  deposits  of  the  seed  left  as  viaticum  of 
departed  souls,  which  attest  the  antiquity  of  its  use 
within  the  limits  of  the  United  States.  Even  to-day, 
shopkeepers  in  the  Spanish  quarters  of  our  own 
Southwestern  cities  as  well  as  street  venders  in  the 
towns  of  Mexico  include  Chia  as  part  of  their  stock 
in  trade. 

One  wonders  what  this  all  but  forgotten  food  can 
be. 

It  is  the  name  applied  to  at  least  five  or  six  dis- 
tinct species  of  plants,  of  somewhat  different  aspects, 
most  of  them  belonging  to  the  genus  Salvia.  The 
seeds  are  flattish  and  more  or  less  shining,  suggest- 
ing small  flaxseed,  of  whose  character  they  some- 
what partake,  being  oily  and  mucilaginous.  For 
human  consumption  they  should  be  parched  and 
ground,  w^hen  they  may  advantageously  be  added  to 
corn-meal,  and  this  mixture  made  with  water  into 
a  mush  was  a  favorite   item  in  the   old  Mexican 

42 


WILD  SEEDS  OF  FOOD  VALUE 

dietary.  Some  of  the  present-day  Indians  of 
Southern  California  mix  Chia  meal  with  ground 
wheat,  imparting  to  the  latter  a  delicate,  nut-like 
flavor,  though  the  mucilaginous  character  of  Chia 
disposes  the  mixture  to  gumminess.  Pure  Chia 
meal,  mixed  with  water,  cold  or  hot,  swells  to  several 
times  the  original  bulk,  and  is  best  eaten  as  a  semi- 
fluid gruel.  Old  time  travelers  in  our  desert  regions 
used  to  provide  themselves  with  this  meal,  which 
constituted  an  easily  portable  and  highly  nutritious 
ration  eaten  dry  with  the  addition  of  a  little  sugar. 
The  species  indigenous  to  the  United  States  are 
Salvia  Coliimhariae,  Benth.,  and  S.  carduacea,  Benth. 
Both  are  winter  annuals  native  to  the  Pacific  side 
of  the  continent.  The  former  is  the  more  common, 
found  in  dry  ground  throughout  Southern  Cali- 
fornia and  adjacent  parts  of  Nevada,  Arizona  and 
Mexico.  The  small,  blue  flowers,  crowded  in  dense, 
prickly,  globular  heads,  interrupted  upon  the  stalk 
(which  passes  through  the  midst  like  a  skewer),  ap- 
pear from  March  to  June,  and  the  seeds  are  ripe 
a  month  or  so  later.  They  are  easily  gathered  by 
bending  the  stalks  over  a  bowl  or  finely  woven 
basket,  and  beating  the  heads  mth  a  paddle  or  fan, 
which  shatters  out  the  seeds.  That  is  the  Indian 
method;  but  when  the  plants  grow  plentifully,  as 

43 


CniA 
(Salvia  ColumhariaeJ 


44 


WILD  SEEDS  OF  FOOD  VALUE 

they  sometimes  do  as  thick  as  grass  in  a  field,  or  as 
they  may  be  made  to  do  by  sowing  the  seed  in  cul- 
tivated ground,  they  can  be  cut,  threshed  and  win- 
nowed like  flax  or  wheat. ^ 

A  wild  food  plant  that  has  had  a  remarkable  in- 
fluence in  geographic  nomenclature  is  the  Wild  Rice 
{Zizania  aquatica,  L.).  It  is  the  folle  avoine  of  the 
French  voyageurs,  and  the  meyiomin  of  the  North- 
west Indians,  to  one  tribe  of  w^hom — the  Alenominees 
— it  gave  a  name.  Mr.  Albert  E.  Jenks,  whose 
exhaustive  monograph,  "The  Wild  Rice  Gatherers 
of  the  Upper  Lakes,  "^  is  a  mine  of  information 
about  the  plant,  instances  over  160  places  (counties, 
townships,  towns,  railway  stations,  rivers,  creeks, 
lakes  and  ponds)  which  have  borne  a  name  synony- 
mous wit'h  this  same  Wild  Rice.  It  is  of  the  same 
family  as  the  rice  of  commerce,  and  is  a  species  of 
annual  grass  found  growing  by  the  acre,  even  the 
hundreds  of  acres,  in  ponds,  swamps  and  still  water- 
ways, both  fresh  and  brackish,  in  virtually  every 
State  of  the  Union  east  of  the  Rocky  Mountains, 
and  also  in  Japan  and  China.  It  is  exceptionally 
abundant  in   the   regions   bordering  on  the   Great 

1  An  important  use  of  Chia  is  as  the  basis  of  a  soft  drink.     See 
the  chapter  on  Beverage  Plants, 

2  Printed  in  the   19th  Ann.  Report,  Bur.  Amer.  Ethnology. 

45 


USEFUL  WILD  PLANTS 


Wild  Rice 
(Zizania  aquatica) 


Lakes  both  in  American  and  Canadian  territory — a 
beautiful,  stately  grass,  rising  from  two  to  twelve 
feet  above  the  water  and  bearing  in  summer  ample 
panicles  of  delicate,  yellomsh-green  blossoms  of  two 

46 


An    Indian    of    the    Great    Lakes    Region    threshing    wild 
rice  by  means  of  a  dasher-Hke  stick. 

(Courtesy   of   the   Nezv    York   Botanical   Gardens.) 


WILD  SEEDS  OF  EOOD  VALUE 

sexes.  These  are  succeeded  in  September  by  the 
purplish  spikes  of  rijoened  seeds  occupying  the  tip 
of  the  panicle.  The  seeds  are  slender  and  cylindri- 
cal, one-half  to  three-fourths  of  an  inch  long,  within 
a  long-bearded  husk  and  attached  so  loosely  to  the 
branchlet  that  bears  them  that  they  drop  at  a  touch. 
They  must  needs  be  gathered,  therefore,  with  great 
care  or  many  may  be  lost.  The  Indians  customarily 
harvest  them  just  before  they  attain  complete  ripe- 
ness, visiting  the  rice  swamps  with  canoes,  which 
they  push  ahead  of  them,  pulling  the  fruiting  stalks 
over  the  hold  of  the  canoe  and  beating  the  seeds 
into  it  with  a  stick.^  The  grain  is  then  taken  ashore 
where  it  is  dried,  either  in  the  sun  or  by  artificial 
heat  upon  racks  under  which  a  slow  fire  is  kept  burn- 
ing. The  husk  must  then  be  threshed  off,  which 
may  be  done  by  pounding  with  a  heavy-ended  stick 
in  a  bucket;  and  finally  the  chaff  is  got  rid  of  by 
winnowing.  The  seeds  are  then  ready  for  use  or  for 
storing  away.  Readers  of  old  journals  of  the  so- 
journers in  the  Northwestern  wilderness  wdll  recall 
the  important  role  played  by  such  stores  of  Wild 

3  The  best  results  are  attained  by  first  tyiiif;  the  standing  stalks 
together  at  the  head  into  small  bunches.  This  is  done  a  couple 
of  weeks  before  maturity  and  serves  to  conserve  the  grain  and 
lessen  the  depredations  of  the  birds — particularly  the  bobolinks — 
which  are  famous  rice  eaters. 

47 


USEFUL  WILD  PLANTS 

Eice  (or  Wild  Oats,  as  the  seed  was  as  often  but 
improperly  called)  in  fighting  hunger  through  the 
long,  remorseless,  northern  winters. 

The  food  value  of  Wild  Rice  is  high.  It  is  rich  in 
carbohydrates  (starch  and  sugar)  and  is  also  well 
stocked  with  flesh-producing  proteids.  Indeed,  as  a 
nutrient,  it  seems  quite  in  the  class  of  its  cousin,  the 
cultivated  rice;  and,  like  the  latter,  it  swells  w^ith 
boiling,  so  that  a  little  goes  a  long  way.  The  Indians 
use  it  generally  in  mixture  with  stews.  If  cooked 
alone,  two  parts  of  water  to  one  of  rice  is  the  usual 
proportion,  and  from  a  half  to  an  entire  hour  is  re- 
quired for  boiling  it.  White  people  who  test  Wild 
Eice  usually  pronounce  it  palatable,  particularly  in 
the  form  of  a  mush  served  with  cream  and  sugar, 
and  Mr.  Jenks  reports  a  wilderness  soup  made  of 
"Wild  Eice  and  blueberries  that  sounds  as  if  it  ought 
to  be  good  even  in  New  York. 

Two  other  water  plants  should  be  noted  for  their 
valuable  edible  seeds.  One  is  the  Water  Chinqua- 
pin, mentioned  in  the  previous  chapter  because  of 
its  useful  roots,  but  which  owes  its  popular  name 
to  the  more  obvious  virtue  of  its  palatable,  nutlike 
seeds.  These,  boiled  or  baked,  are  considered  by 
many  the  equal  of  chestnuts.  The  other  is  the  Great 
Yellow  Pond  Lily  of  the  northwestern  Pacific  Coast 

48 


WILD  SEEDS  OF  FOOD  VALUE 

(Nuphar  poly  sepal  um,  Engelin.),  whose  globose, 
yellow  flowers,  sometimes  as  much  as  five  inches  in 
diameter,  are  a  frequent  and  charming  sight  afloat 
on  the  bosom  of  shallow  lakes  and  marshy  ponds 
of  the  coast  region  from  northern  California  to 
British  Columbia.  The  globular  seed  vessels  are 
full  grown  in  summer,  and  it  is  the  practice  of  the 
Indians  to  gather  them  in  July  and  August,  and,  after 
drying  the  pods,  to  extract  the  seeds,  which  may  then 
be  kept  indefinitely.  These  are  commonly  prepared 
for  consumption  by  tossing  them  about  in  a  frying 
pan  over  a  fire  until  they  swell  and  crack  open  some- 
what as  popcorn  does,  which  they  resemble  in  taste. 
They  may  be  eaten  thus  out  of  hand,  or  ground  into 
meal  for  making  bread  or  mush.^ 

The  common  Sunflower  of  our  gardens,  whose 
monster  heads  appeal  to  esthetes  because  of  a  par- 
ticular style  of  languid  beauty  they  possess,  and  to 
birds  and  chickens  because  of  their  luscious,  oleagin- 
ous seeds,  is  but  a  coddled  form  of  one  of  our  com- 
monest wild  plants — the  Annual  Sunflower  {Heli' 
antlius  annuus,  L.).  This  species  is  indigenous 
throughout  western  North  America,  and  sheets 
summer  and  autumnal  plains  for  miles  with  the  gen- 

4  Coville,    "Notes   on   Plants    Used    by   the   Klamath    Indians    of 
Oregon." 

49 


USEFUL  WILD  PLANTS 

eroiis  gold  of  its  cheery  blossoms.  The  dark  gray 
or  blackish  seeds  of  the  wild  plant  are  much  smaller 
than  those  of  the  cultivated  form,  but  are  exceed- 
ingly numerous,  with  a  white,  oily,  floury  content 
that  is  rich  in  nutriment.  They  used  to  form  an  im- 
portant part  of  the  dietary  of  the  Plains  Indians,  who 
sometimes  cultivated  the  jolants  amid  their  corn. 
The  ripe  seeds  were  parched  and  ground  into  meal, 
and  bread  made  of  this  meal  has  been  spoken  of 
with  approbation  by  white  travelers — even  as  the 
equal  of  corn  bread.  There  can  be  no  doubt  of  its 
value  in  situations  where  the  flours  of  civilization 
are  difficult  to  procure.  As  a  source  of  oil  sunflower 
seed  is  by  no  means  insignificant,  yielding,  according 
to  Havard,  about  twenty  per  cent,  of  an  excellent 
table  article.  To  most  of  us,  indeed,  the  Wild  Sun- 
flower is  a  plant  of  unsuspected  uses:  its  stalks 
possess  a  fibre  of  some  worth  and  its  flowers  are 
good  honey  producers  as  well  as  a  basis  of  a  yellow 
dye  said  to  be  fast.^ 
In  our  Spanish  Southwest  the  term  pinole  is  in  use 

5  Helianthus  annuus  is  a  coarse,  much  branched  plant,  three  to 
six  feet  tall,  the  rough  stem  frequently  mottled,  the  root  (being 
annual)  easily  pulled  up.  The  large  flower  heads  are  yellow-rayed 
with  a  dark  center  that  is  an  inch  or  so  across.  Leaves  petioled, 
ovate,  six  inches  or  more  long,  with  toothed  edges,  rough  to  the 
touch.  The  seeds  of  the  closely  related  species,  H.  petiolaris,  Nutt., 
are  similarly  useful. 

50 


WILD  SEEDS  OF  FOOD  VALUE 

to  mean  meal  made  from  the  seeds  of  wild  plants. 
Of  these  a  great  number  have  been  utilized  in  past 
times  for  this  purpose  by  the  aborigines,  and  still 
are  to  some  extent  by  old  Indians  whose  taste  for  the 
pabulum  of  the  long  ago  has  not  been  lost.  There 
is,  it  seems,  a  certain  tang  to  the  native  vegetable 
foods  of  the  wild  comparable  to  the  gaminess  of  mid 
flesh,  that  meets  a  need  in  untamed  man  not  satis- 
fied by  the  suaver  products  of  civilization.  The 
preparation  of  pinole  is  in  a  general  way  as  follows : 
Provided  with  a  large  gathering  basket  of  close 
weave  and  a  paddle,  usually  of  rough  basket-work, 
the  harvester  beats  the  seeds — one  sort  at  a  time 
— into  the  basket,  until  a  sufficient  quantity  is  ob- 
tained. The  chaff  is  then  separated  by  sifting  or  by 
w^innoAving  in  a  light  breeze,  and  any  prickles  or 
hairiness  natural  to  the  seeds  are  singed  off  by  drop- 
ping hot  pebbles  or  live  coals  among  them  in  a  shal- 
low basket  and  tossing  all  about  at  a  lively  rate. 
More  prosaically,  the  same  end  may  be  attained  with 
a  frying  pan  kept  agitated  over  a  flame.  This 
singeing  process,  moreover,  serves  to  parch  or 
partially  cook  the  seeds,  which  are  then  ground  in 
a  mortar  and  the  husks  winnowed  out.  The  resid- 
uum of  meal,  mixed  with  a  little  salt,  may  be  eaten 
dry  without   further  preparation.     Indians  in   old 

51 


USEFUL  WILD  PLANTS 

times  frequently  made  forced  marches  of  a  day  on 
no  other  ration  than  a  small  sack  of  pinole,  con- 
sumed in  instalments  as  they  traveled.  ^'  More  often, 
however,  it  is  moistened  with  water  and  eaten  as 
mush  or  thinner  as  a  gruel,  or  baked  in  the  form  of 
cakes.  While  the  different  sorts  of  seeds  are  col- 
lected and  ground  separately,  it  is  not  unusual  to 
combine  them  for  consumption,  as  taste  may  dictate."^ 

It  would  be  tedious  to  enumerate  all  the  plants 
which  have  been  found  of  sufficient  food  value  to 
grind  into  pinole,  but  the  following  may  be  men- 
tioned as  of  especial  interest  and  worth : 

Of  wide  distribution  in  our  Far  West  are  two 
annual  species  of  the  homely  Goosefoot  or  Pigweed. 
One  is  Chenopodium  Fremontii,  Wats.,  with  more  or 
less  mealy  leaves  of  triangular  shape,  a  plant  usually 
a  foot  or  two  high  but  sometimes  attaining  in  over- 
flowed lands  a  height  of  six  feet  or  over ;  the  other  is 
C.  leptophyllitm,  Nutt.,  with  very  narrow  leaves  that 
are  scarcely  mealy.  The  latter  species  occurs  also 
in  seashore  sands  of  the  Atlantic  coast  from  Con- 
necticut to  New  Jersey.     The  inconspicuous  green 

6  For  white  consumption,  the  digestibility  of  this  ration  is  im- 
proved by  thorough  and  repeated  grinding  and  parching  after  each 
operation. 

7  V.  K.  Chesnut:  "Plants  Used  by  the  Indians  of  Mendocino  Co., 
California."  Printed  as  Contributions  from  the  U.  S.  National 
Herbarium,  Vol.  VII,  No.  3. 

52 


WILD  SEEDS  OF  FOOD  VALUE 

flowers  of  both  species,  clustered  in  panicled  spikes, 
are  succeeded  in  late  summer  and  autumn  by  an 
abundance  of  small  black  seeds  of  farinaceous  con- 
tent. It  stimulates  our  respect  for  these  humble, 
weedy  plants  to  know  that  the  seeds  of  an  allied 
species,  Chenopodium  Quinoa,  have  from  the  dawn 
of  history  been  a  valued  food  of  the  native  Peruvians 
and  Bolivians,  and  have  been  cultivated  by  those 
races.  The  Zuhi  Indians  of  New  Mexico,  according 
to  Stevenson,  have  a  tradition  that  the  seeds  of  C. 
leptophyllum  were  one  of  their  principal  foodstuffs 
in  the  infancy  of  the  race  before  the  gods  sent  them 
the  corn  plant.  Afterw^ards,  Chenopodium  meal 
mixed  with  corn  meal  and  salt,  made  into  a  stiff 
batter  and  moulded  into  balls  or  pats  and  steamed, 
became  a  favorite  dish  with  epicurean  Zuhis.^  The 
seeds  of  a  prostrate,  mat-like  Amaranth  {Amaran- 
thiis  hlitoides,  Wats.),  a  weedy  plant  with  spikelets 
of  greenish,  chaffy  flowers,  native  to  the  Eocky 
Mountain  region  and  westward,  also  formed  an  im- 
portant item  in  the  ancient  diet  of  the  Zufiis,  who 
believed  that  the  original  seeds  of  it  had  been  brought 
up  from  the  underworld  at  the  time  of  the  race's 
emergence  into  the  light  of  day.     In  later  years,  the 

8  "Ethnobotany   of    the    Zuui    Indians."     30th    Ann.    Report    Bur. 
Amer.  Ethnology. 


USEFUL  Vs'ILl)  PLANTS 

meal  made  from  these  seeds  has  been  used,  like  that 
from  Chenopodium,  in  admixture  with  corn  meal. 
Similarly  useful  to  desert  Indians  are  the  seeds  of 
species  of  Saltbush  {Atriplex  canescens,  James,  A. 
lentifonnis,  Wats.,  A.  PoivelUi,  Wats.,  A.  conferti- 
foUa,  Wats.,  etc.). 

White  Sage  (Audihertia  polystaclujay  Benth.),  one 
of  the  most  famous  of  Pacific  Coast  honey  plants, 
produces  slender,  wandlike  thyrses  of  pale  blossoms 
whose  seeds,  though  small  and  husky,  are  exceed- 
ingly numerous  and  rich  in  oil.  They  are  still 
gathered  by  Southern  California  Indians,  who  bend 
the  plants  over  a  large  basket  and  beat  the  seeds  into 
it  by  striking  with  a  seed-beater,  as  described  before 
when  treating  of  Chia.  The  seeds,  mixed  with  wheat, 
are  parched  in  a  frying  pan,  and  all  is  reduced  to  a 
fine  meal  by  pounding  in  a  mortar.  This  stirred  in 
water  with  a  sprinkling  of  salt  is  then  ready  to  be 
eaten,  or  drunk,  according  as  the  mixture  is  thick  or 
thin.  It,  too,  is  called  pinole.  The  sage  seeds  have 
much  the  taste  of  Chia,  the  botanical  relationship  be- 
ing close,  but  they  are  not  mucilaginous. 

Several  species  of  wild  grasses  are  utilizable  for 
pinole.  One  of  these  is  the  Wild  Oat  (Avena  fatua, 
L.),  suspected  of  being  the  progenitor  of  the  culti- 
vated oat,  and  abundant  in  certain  parts  of  the  West, 

54 


Red  Maple  (Acer  rubruni),  the  source  of  a  dark  blue  dye 
in  vogue  among  the  Pennsylvania  colonists.     (See  page  226.) 


{Courtesy  of  the  New   York  Botanical  Gardcus.) 


WILD  SEEDS  OF  FOOD  VALUE 

particularly  on  the  Pacific  Coast  where  extensive 
areas  are  covered  with  it  as  with  a  crop.  The  seed 
resembles  the  cultivated  grain,  but  is  so  hairy  as 
to  stick  in  one's  throat  and  choke  one.  After 
thoroughly  singeing  off  the  hairs  in  a  pan  or  basket 
tray,  the  grain  may  be  reduced  to  flour,  and  used 
like  ordinary  oat-flour.  Another  pinole  grass  is 
Ely  mils  triticoides,  Buckl.,  locally  known  as  ''wild 
w^heaf  and  "squaw  grass.''  It  is  a  tall,  shm  grass 
w^ith  usually  glaucous  stems,  and  grows  densely  in 
moist  meadows  and  alkaline  soil  throughout  the 
Pacific  Coast  and  eastward  to  Colorado  and  Arizona. 
An  allied  sjDecies,  more  robust,  with  very  dense 
flower-spikes  of  a  foot  long  and  larger  seeds,  serves 
a  similar  purpose.  It  is  commonly  called  ''rye 
grass"  and  is  the  Elymus  condensatus,  Presl.,  of  the 
botanists.  It,  too,  is  abundant  in  damp,  alkaline 
ground  and  along  streams  throughout  the  Far  West, 
and  Mr.  Coville  ^  has  suggested  that  it  may  be  worthy 
of  exiDcrimentation  as  a  cultivated  grain  for  that 
region. 

A  Southwestern  grass  of  wide  distribution,  par- 
ticularly in  the  deserts,  in  sandy  places  (both  moist 
and  dry)  and  on  arid  hillsides,  is  the  so-called  Indian 

9  "Plants  Used  by  the  Klamath  Indians,''  Washington,  Gov't  Print- 
ing Office,  1897. 

55 


USEFUL  WILD  PLANTS 

Millet  or  Sand-grass  {Eriocoma  cuspidata,  Nutt.). 
It  is  a  perennial,  growing  in  bunches  a  foot  or  two 
high,  with  peculiar  panicles  whose  thread-like,  twist- 
ing branchlets  are  tipped  with  husks  containing 
small,  blackish  seeds,  which  have  long  been  valued 
by  desert  Indians  for  flour  making.  This  is  one  of 
the  wild  grains  upon  which  the  Zuni  Indians  of  New 
Mexico  have  been  in  the  habit  of  relying  in  times  of 
failure  of  their  cultivated  crops;  and  Dr.  Edward 
Palmer  tells  of  parties  of  Zuhis  being  seen  as  far  as 
i^w  miles  from  their  villages  carr^dng  enormous 
loads  of  these  seeds  for  winter  provision.  Still  an- 
other desert  grass  with  edible  seeds,  but  restricted 
in  its  distribution  in  our  country  to  Southern  Cali- 
fornia, is  Panicum  Urvilleanuniy  Kunth,  which  the 
desert  Coahuillas  call  song-wal.  It  is  a  stout  per- 
ennial, one  to  two  feet  high,  the  whole  plant,  includ- 
ing the  seeds,  more  or  less  hairy,  and  is  quite  near 
of  kin  to  the  millet  of  the  Old  World,  whose  nutri- 
tious properties  it  shares. 

Among  the  various  gummy  plants  of  the  Pacific 
Coast  known  there  as  Tarweeds  is  one  called  Chile 
Tarweed  {Madia  sativa,  Molina).  It  is  a  heavy- 
scented  annual,  one  to  three  feet  high,  sticky  and 
hair}%  with  rather  narrow,  entire  leaves,  and  incon- 
spicuous, pale  yellow  flowers  of  the  daisy  type,  the 

56 


WILD  SEEDS  OF  FOOD  VALUE 

rays  barely  a  quarter  of  an  inch  long,  expanding 
only  at  evening  and  earh^  moniing.  This  and  some 
kindred  species  have  been  utilized  by  the  California 
Indians  for  pinole.  The  Chile  Tarweed  has  a  spe- 
cial interest  in  the  fact  that  in  Chile,  where  it  is 
also  abundant,  it  has  been  cultivated  from  very  early 
times.  The  seeds,  when  scalded,  yield  under  com- 
pression a  considerable  percentage  of  a  mild,  agree- 
able oil,  suitable  for  table  purposes,  soap-making, 
and  notably  for  lubricating  machinery,  as  it  does 
not  solidify  short  of  10°  Fahr.  Some  eighty  years 
ago,  the  plant  w^as  introduced  into  cultivation  in 
Europe,  where,  I  believe,  it  is  still  grown  to  some 
extent,  and  an  oil-cake  is  made  of  the  seeds  for 
cattle. 

To  the  traveler  in  the  hill  country  of  central  and 
Southern  California  and  western  Arizona  a  familiar 
shrub  is  a  species  of  wild  plum  with  shining,  ever- 
green, holly-like  leaves  {Pruniis  ilicifolia,  Walp.), 
maturing  in  autumn  an  abundance  of  crimson  or 
dark  purple  fruits  in  size  and  appearance  like  small 
damson  plums.  They  are  disappointing,  however, 
in  that  they  are  almost  entirely  stone,  though  such 
thin  covering  of  pulp  as  there  is,  is  pleasant  enough 
to  the  taste.  It  is  an  interesting  fact  in  connection 
with  the  Indian's  inventive  genius  that  this  fruit  be- 

57 


USEFUL  WILD  PLANTS 

came  long  ago  one  of  his  important  food  sources; 
though  it  was  not  the  pulp  but  the  apparently  hope- 
less pit  that  was  turned  to  principal  account.  Gath- 
ering the  plums  in  late  suromer,  the  Indians  would 


I  SLAY 

(Prunus  ilicifolia) 


spread  them  in  the  sun  until  thoroughly  dry,  when 
the  stones  would  be  cracked  and  the  kernels  ex- 
tracted. These,  are  bitter  and  astringent  like  acorns, 
and  at  first  blush  as  unpromising  as  the  uncracked 
pits  themselves.  When  rid  of  that  deleterious  prin- 
ciple, however,  the  kernels  are  nutritious  and  diges- 

58 


WILD  SEEDS  OF  FOOD  VALUE 

tible  (by  Indian  organs,  at  least),  and  have  always 
formed  a  cherished  item  in  the  native  dietarv, 
wherever  the  shrub  grows.  It  is  quite  generally 
known  by  its  Spanish-Indian  name  islay.  Barrows, 
writing  of  this  food,^^*  states  that  the  kernels  are 
crushed  in  a  mortar,  leached  in  the  sand  basket  (pre- 
sumably like  acorn-meal)  and  boiled  as  mush;  but 
an  intelligent  old  Indian  of  Mission  Santa  Ines,  one 
Fernando  Cardenas,  who  is  familiar  with  the  customs 
practised  by  Southern  California  Indians,  has  in- 
formed me  that  the  process  as  observed  by  him  ^vas 
to  put  the  unground  kernels  into  a  bag  and  dip  the 
sack  in  hot  water  again  and  again,  until  the  meats 
became  sweet.  They  were  then  ground,  fashioned 
into  balls  and  eaten  so  with  great  gusto.  As  I  have 
personally  never  seen  either  process,  I  record  both 
for  the  curious  to  test  for  themselves. 

It  would  seem  reasonable  to  expect  edible  seeds 
of  many  of  the  wild  members  of  the  useful  Pea 
family,  wliich  is  abundantly  represented  in  all  parts 
of  the  countrv.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  few^  seem  to 
have  been  found  ^vorth  while  even  by  Indians  of  the 
most  catholic  taste.  The  Groundnut,  Ai^ios  tube- 
rosa,  has  been  mentioned  in  a  previous  chapter  as 

10  "The  Etlinobotany  of  the  CoaliuiUa  Indians  of   Southern  Cali- 
fornia." 

59 


Hog  Peanut 

( Amphicarpaea  monoica) 

60 


WILD  SEEDS  OF  FOOD  VALUE 

having  been  utilized,  both  seeds  and  tubers;  and 
something  should  be  said  of  another  leguminous 
plant  popularly  called  Hog  Peanut  {Amphicarpaea 
monoica,  Nutt.).  It  is  a  slender  vine  with  trifoliate 
leaves,  the  stem  clothed  with  brownish  hairs,  and  is 
frequently  met  wdth  in  damp  woodlands  and  thickets 
throughout  the  eastern  half  of  the  United  States. 
In  late  summer  it  is  graced  wath  small  bunches  of 
pale  purple  or  whitish  pea-like  blossoms,  pen- 
dulous from  the  leaf-axils,  wdiile  from  near  the  root 
solitary,  inconspicuous  flowers  on  thread-like  stems 
put  out  and  bury  themselves  loosely  in  the  ground, 
or  creep  shyly  beneath  a  covering  of  fallen  leaves. 
The  showy  upper  blossoms  are  mostly  abortive, 
though  a  few  manage  to  develop  short  pods  contain- 
ing three  or  four  small  purple  seeds  apiece,  edible 
w^lien  cooked.  Of  much  greater  worth  are  the  sub- 
terranean seed-vessels  which  bear  a  single  large  pea 
in  each.  These  peas  are  quite  nutritious.  They  are 
mature  in  September  and  October,  but  retain  their 
vitality  throughout  the  winter,  so  that  they  may  be 
dug  even  in  the  spring  if  one  knows  w^here  to  look 
for  them. 

The  most  valuable  of  all  our  wild  legumes  is 
doubtless  the  Mesquit-bean,  the  aUjarroha  of  the 
Mexicans.     It  is  the  product  of  a  w^ell-known  tree 

61 


USEFUL  WILD  PLANTS 


(Prosopis  jiili-pora,  DC,  and  its  varieties)  abundant 
throughout  the  arid  region  on  both  sides  of  the 
Mexican  border.  It  is,  indeed,  the  characteristic 
tree  of  the  Southwestern  deserts,  giving  to  those 

gray  wastes  touches  of  living 
color  very  grateful  to  the  eyes 
starving  for  the  sight  of  a  really 
vivid  green.  The  pods,  in  shape 
and  size  resembling  string 
beans,  are  produced  abundantly 
in  drooping  clusters,  which, 
ripening  in  late  summer,  become 
lemon  yellow.  The  juicy  pulp, 
in  which  the  hard,  bony  seeds 
are  embedded,  is  exceedingly 
sweet,  containing,  according  to 
Havard,  more  than  half  its 
weight  of  assimilable  nutritive 
properties,  of  which  sugar  is 
in  the  proportion  of  from  twent3^-five  to  thirty  per 
cent.  All  stock  thrives  on  the  pods,  and  it  is  on 
this  account  rather  than  on  any  appeal  to  his  own 
stomach  that  the  white  man's  regard  for  them  is 
grounded ;  but  upon  the  Indian,  who  has  ever  a  sweet 
tooth,  they  have  a  strong  claim  as  human  food. 
There  is  before  me,  as  I  write,  a  jar  of  coarse  mesquit 

62 


Mesquit 
(Prosopis  julifiora) 


7    .^K<' •';>•• 


Mesquit 
(Prosopis  julijiora) 


63 


USEFUL  WILD  PLANTS 

meal,  and  it  is  as  cloyingly  fragrant  as  so  much  mo- 
lasses. Mr.  Edward  H.  Davis,  of  Mesa  Grande, 
California,  to  whom  I  am  indebted  for  the  sijecimen, 
writes  concerning  it : 

**The  mesquit  meal  is  used  to-day  by  the  desert 
Indians  the  same  as  centuries  ago.  The  pod  i'S 
pounded  up  in  wooden  mortars  made  from  the 
mesquit-tree  trunk  hollowed  out  by  fire  and  set 
firmly  in  the  ground.  A  long,  slender,  stone  pestle 
is  used  to  pound  with.  The  beans  are  so  brittle  that 
enough  for  dinner  can  be  prepared  in  eight  to  ten 
minutes.  The  meal  is  mixed  with  Avater  and  eaten 
so,  being  sweet  and  nourishing.  The  edible  part  is 
the  pulp  of  the  pods  only;  the  seeds  are  not  diges- 
tible by  either  man  or  beast,  but  will  pass  through 
the  digestive  tract  unchanged.  However,  by  pour- 
ing warm  water  over  the  seeds  a  sweetish,  rather 
lemon-tasting  drink  is  made  and  much  relished  by 
the  desert  Coahuillas.'^ 

The  Pima  Indians  of  Southern  Arizona  formerly 
used  mesquit  meal  as  a  makeshift  for  sugar,  mingling 
it  with  their  wheat  or  corn  pinole  to  sweeten  the 
latter.^^  The  raw  beans  picked  from  the  tree  may 
be  chewed  with  enjoyment  and  some  nutritive  profit, 

11  John  Russell  Bartlett,  "Personal  Narrative  of  Explorations  in 
Texas,  New  Mexico,   California,   etc."     Vol.   II:    217. 

64 


WILD  SEEDS  OF  FOOD  VALUE 

as  one  travels.  The  quality  of  mingled  acidity  and 
sweetness  which  they  possess  before  perfect  ma- 
turity acts  also  as  a  thirst  i^reventive,  much  as  do 
the  pods  of  the  carob-tree  of  the  Mediterranean 
basin.  Indeed,  the  Spanish  term  algarroha  applied 
in  Mexico  and  our  Southwest  to  the  Mesquit  bean, 
is  a  case  of  transference,  algarroho  being  the  word 
used  in  Spain  for  the  carob-tree.  A  feature  of  the 
Mesquit-bean,  by  the  way,  to  be  reckoned  with,  is 
the  fact  that  the  pods  are  a  favorite  resort  of  -a 
species  of  pea-weevil  (Bruchus)  for  the  deposit  of 
their  eggs.  As  a  consequence  Mesquit  meal  is  par- 
ticularly liable  to  infestation  by  these  small  beings 
to  a  degree  that  is  somewhat  of  a  shock  to  white 
sensibilities,  though  the  Indians  are  indifferent  to 
their  presence;  yet,  I  suppose,  after  all,  it  is  no 
w^orse  than  skippers  in  over-ripe  cheese,  which  some 
white  ejoicures  delight  in.^^ 

The  Mexicans  make  a  sort  of  gruel,  called  atole 
de  mezquite,  by  boiling  the  mesquit  pods,  mashing 
them  to  a  pulp  in  fresh  water,  and  straining.  A 
nutritious  beverage  is  thus  obtained,  agreeable  to 
some  tastes.  So  altogether  useful  is  the  mesquit 
tree  that  it  is  not  surprising  to  learn  that  it  figures 

12  A  useful  by-product  of  the  Mesquit-tree  is  a  gum  that  exudes 
from  the  liruised  bark  and  may  be  used  for  the  purpose  of  gum 
arable,  which  it  much  resembles. 

65 


USEFUL  WILD  PLANTS 

in  the  folklore  of  some  regions  where  it  grows. 
In  Mexico  a  curious  tradition  is  current  to  this 
effect:  Long  before  the  Spanish  Conquest,  the 
Apostle  Thomas,  in  his  heavenly  home,  became  in- 
terested in  the  Aztecs,  and  descending  to  earth 
appeared  to  them  in  the  guise  of  the  Mexican  hero- 
god  Quetzacoatl  and  preached  the  gospel.  The 
Aztecs  heard  the  doctrine  but  coldly,  and  so  San 
Tomas  in  most  unchristian  dudgeon  departed,  leav- 
ing the  curse  of  sterility  upon  the  plain  of  Anahuac 
and  turning  all  its  cacao  trees  into  mesquites,  which 
remain  mesquites  to  this  day ! 

Closely  related  to  the  Mesquit-bean  and  of  similar 
utility  is  the  Screw-bean,  called  by  the  Mexicans 
tornilla.  It  is  a  curious,  slender,  spirall3^-twisted 
pod,  borne  in  clusters,  upon  a  small  tree  {Prosopis 
pubescens,  Benth.)  having  much  the  same  geographi- 
cal range  as  the  mesquit.  The  Screw-bean  is  even 
more  sugary  than  the  Mesquit-bean,  and  it  may  be 
made  by  boiling  to  yield  a  very  fair  sort  of  molasses. 
"Water  in  which  a  small  quantity  of  t-he  meal  is  soaked 
makes  a  palatable  and  nutritious  beverage.  In  mak- 
ing Screw-bean  meal,  the  Indians  grind  the  whole 
pods,  seeds  and  all. 


66 


CHAPTER  IV 

THE  ACORN  AS  HUMAN  FOOD  AND 
SOME  OTHER  WILD  NUTS 

Happy  age  to  which  the  ancients  gave  the  name  of  golden.  .  .  . 
None  found  it  needful,  in  order  to  obtain  sustenance,  to  re- 
sort to  other  labor  than  to  stretch  out  his  hand  and  take  it  from 
the  sturdy  live-oak,  which  liberally  invited  him. 

Don  Quixote. 

CERTAIN  nuts  growing  wild  in  the  United 
States,  such  as  the  chestnut,  the  hickories,  the 
pecan,  the  beech-nut  and  the  walnuts,  have  secured 
so  fimi  a  place  in  our  civilized  dietar}^  that  every- 
one knows  them,  and  they  need  not  be  discussed  here. 
Perhaps,  though,  we  have  not  exhausted  all  their 
culinary  possibilities.  For  instance,  William  Bar- 
tram  tells  us  that  the  Creek  Indians  in  his  dav 
pounded  the  shellbark  nuts,  cast  them  into  boiling 
water  and  then  passed  the  mass  through  a  veiy  fine 
strainer.  The  thicker,  oily  part  of  the  liquid  thus 
preserved  w^as  rich  like  fresh  cream,  and  w^as  called 
by  a  name  signifying  ^Miickory  milk."  It  formed 
an  ingredient  in  much  of  their  cookery,  especially  in 

67 


USEFUL  WILD  PLANTS 

hominy  and  corn  cakes.  Peter  Kalm  speaks  of  a 
similar  practice  observed  by  him  with  hickoiy  nuts 
and  black  walnuts.  A  cooking  oil  is  also  said  to  have 
been  obtained  from  acorns  by  some  Eastern  tribes, 
the  nuts  being  pounded,  boiled  in  water  containing 
maple-wood  ashes,  and  the  oil  skimmed  off. 

Of  the  nuts  of  our  country  unregarded  by  the 
w^hite  population  from  the  standpoint  of  human  food 
value,  the  noble  genus  of  oaks  supplies  the  most  im- 
portant. Every  farmer  realizes  the  w^orth  of  acorns 
for  fattening  hogs,  but  in  America  onij  the  Lidians, 
I  believe,  have  taken  seriously  to  utilizing  them  for 
human  consumption ;  and  it  is  significant  that  among 
the  fattest  of  all  Lidians  are  those — the  Calif ornians 
— wdiose  staple  diet  from  prehistoric  times  has  been 
acorn  meal.  There  is,  to  be  sure,  a  difference  in 
acoiTLS.  All  are  not  bitter.  Several  species  of  oak 
produce  nuts  w^hose  sweetness  and  edibility  in  the 
raw  state  make  it  easy  to  believe  the  acorn's  cousin- 
ship  to  the  chestnut  and  beechnut.  Li  this  class  are 
the  different  sorts  of  Chestnut  Oaks,  easily  recog- 
nized by  the  resemblance  of  their  leaves  to  the  foliage 
of  the  chestnut  tree;  and  of  these  perhaps  the  best, 
in  respect  of  acorns,  is  Quercus  Michaiixii,  Nutt. 
— commonly  known  as  Basket  Oak  or  Cow  Oak.  It 
is  a  large  tree,  indigenous  to  the  Southern  Atlantic 

68 


THE  ACORN  AS  HUMAN  FOOD 

States  in  situations  near  streams  and  swamps,  and 
ripening  in  September  or  October  plump,  sweet  nuts 
an  inch  and  a  half  long. 

Oddly  enough  it  is  not  the  sweet  acorns  but  the 
bitter  that  have  played  the  really  noteworthy  part  in 
aboriginal  history.  The  Indians  of  the  Pacific  Coast 
did  not  become  maize  growers  until  after  the  white 
occupation  of  their  country,  preferring  to  accept 
from  the  hand  of  indulgent  Nature  such  nutrients  as 
came  ready  made,  among  w^hich  the  abounding  fruit- 
age of  extensive  oak  forests  formed,  and  still  forms, 
a  conspicuous  part.  The  acorns  of  all  species  of 
oaks  indigenous  to  that  coast  are  more  or  less  stored 
with  tannin,  which  imparts  to  the  taste  an  unwhole- 
some bitterness  and  astringency  as  disagreeable  to 
red  men  as  to  white.  Some  inventive  Indian — and 
doubtless  it  was  a  woman,  the  aboriginal  harvester 
as  w^ell  as  cook — long  ago  hit  upon  a  simple  but 
effective  way  of  extracting  the  deleterious  principle ; 
that  is,  washing  the  finely  ground  acorns  in  water. 
The  process  of  preparing  the  acorn  for  human  use, 
as  still  practiced  in  some  parts  of  California,  is  as 
follows : 

In  autumn  v/hen  the  nuts  are  ripe  but  not  yet 
fallen,  they  are  gathered  in  baskets  and  barley  sacks, 
brought  home  and  laid  in  the  sun  to  dry.     Some  are 

69 


USEFUL  WILD  PLANTS 

then  stored  away  for  future  use  in  the  house  or  in 
huge  storage  baskets  set  outdoors  on  platforms  that 
are  raised  on  legs  above  the  reach  of  rodents,  and 
form  a  picturesque  feature  of  primitive  rancherias. 
The  acorns  for  immediate  consumption  are  divested 
of  the  shells  by  cracking,  and  the  kernels  then  re- 
duced to  the  finest  possible  powder  by  grinding  in 
the  stone  mortar,  it  having  been  found  that  digesti- 
bility depends  upon  thorough  grinding. 

The  next  step  is  to  get  rid  of  the  bitterness,  which 
persists  through  all  the  milling. 

Every  acorn-eating  family  maintains  beside  the 
nearest  water  a  primitive  leaching  plant,  varying 
more  or  less  in  the  details  of  its  make-up,  but  con- 
sisting primarily  of  a  loose,  concave  nest  of  twigs, 
leaves  or  pine  needles  raised  a  foot  or  two  above 
the  ground  and  ensuring  perfect  drainage.  Over 
this  is  stretched  a  piece  of  porous  cloth — a  clean 
burlap  will  do — sagging,  basin-like,  in  the  middle, 
upon  which  the  meal  is  spread  evenly  about  half  an 
inch  thick.  Water,  warm  or  cold,  is  then  poured 
carefully  over  this  and  allowed  to  filter  through, 
more  being  added  from  time  to  time  until  the  bitter- 
ness is  entirel}^  leached  away.  The  length  of  time 
required  for  this  differs  according  to  the  variety  of 
acorns   used,   some   being  less  bitter   than   others. 

70 


(/I 


THE  ACORN  AS  HUMAN  FOOD 

Two  or  three  hours  usually  sullice.  The  result  is  a 
doughy  mass,  which  is  then  transferred  to  a  i)ut  with 
water  added,  and  boiled  up  for  mush.  It  swells  in 
cooking  to  about  twice  its  original  bulk,  and  when 
done  is  a  pale  chocolate  color.  In  taste  it  is  rather 
flat  but  with  a  suggestion  of  nuttiness  that  becomes 
distinctly  agreeable  even  to  some  white  palates. 
Judging  from  my  own  experience  with  it,  I  should 
pronounce  it  about  as  good  as  an  average  breakfast- 
food  mush.  Cream  and  sugar  and  a  pinch  of  salt 
are  considered  needful  concomitants  by  most  white 
consumers.  Formerlv  the  Indians  baked  a  sort  of 
bread  from  acorn  dough  in  their  primitive  tireless 
cooker — that  is,  in  shallow  pits  first  lined  vnili  thor- 
oughly heated  rocks.  For  this  purpose  the  dough 
was  usually,  though  not  always,  mixed  with  red  clay 
in  proportion  of  about  five  per  cent.,  according  to 
Mr.  Chesnut,  from  whose  valua1)le  monograph, 
^^  Plants  Used  by  the  Indians  of  Mendocino  Co., 
California,"  I  have  drawn  for  this  statement, — 
the  purpose  of  the  clay  being  apparently  to  remove 
the  last  trace  of  tannin  remaining  in  the  dough. 
Upon  a  bed  of  green  leaves  placed  at  the  bottom  of 
the  pit  the  dough  was  laid,  covered  with  another 
layer  of  leaves,  upon  which  a  super-layer  of  heated 
stones  was  put,  and  all  then  covered  with  dirt,  to 

71 


USEFUL  WILD  PLANTS 

remain  over  night.  When  removed  after  about 
twelve  hours  of  slow  cooking,  the  bread  was  coal 
black  if  the  admixture  of  clay  had  been  used  or  red- 
dish bro^\ai  otherwise,  and  of  the  consistency  of  soft 
cheese,  hardening,  however,  with  exposure.  Such 
bread  is  oily  and  heavy,  but  noticeably  sweet  in 
taste.  The  latter  characteristic  is  doubtless  due  to 
sugar  developed  by  the  prolonged,  slow  steaming. 

Dr.  C.  Hart  Merriam,  in  the  '^National  Geographic 
Magazine"  for  August,  1918,  tells  of  a  simpler  way 
of  making  acorn  bread  as  observed  by  him.  The 
hot  acorn-mush  is  dipped,  a  small  quantity  at  a 
time,  from  the  general  stock  and  plunged  into  cold 
water,  which  causes  the  lumps  to  contract  and 
stiffen.  The  ^'loaves"  so  made  are  then  placed  on 
a  rock  to  harden  and  dry  out,  after  which  they  may 
be  kept  for  weeks  until  consumed.  The  same  au- 
thority speaks  of  the  excellence  of  a  bread  made 
from  a  mixture  of  acorn-flour  and  corn-meal,  in  the 
proportion  of  one  of  the  former  to  four  of  the 
latter. 

While  the  acorns  of  any  species  may  be  utilized 
for  human  need,  there  is  a  distinct  choice  exercised 
by  the  Indians,  the  preference  being  based  appar- 
ently on  relative  richness  in  oil  and  lowness  in  tannin. 
The  best  liked,  according  to  my  observation,  are 

72 


THE  ACORN  AS  HUMAN  FOOD 

the  Kellogg  or  California  Black  oak  (Quercus  Cali- 
foniicay  [Torr.]  Cooper),  the  Coast  Live  oak  (Q. 
agrifoUa,  Nee),  the  Valparaiso  or  Canyon  Live  oak 
(Q.  chrysolepis,  Lieb),  and  the  colossal  Valley  White 
oak  {Q.  lohata,  Nee).  An  analysis  of  acorn  meal 
made  from  the  last  named  species  is  quoted  by 
Chesnut  as  showing  in  percentage  5.7  protein,  18.6 
fat,  65  carbohydrates  (starch,  sugar,  etc.).  Though 
the  Californians  are  regarded  as  among  the  lowest 
of  our  North  American  aborigines  in  native  culture, 
their  self-devised  treatment  of  the  acorn  to  make  of 
it  a  wholesome  food  staple  is  entitled  to  the  greatest 
respect.  Stephen  Powers,  in  his  classic  work  on  the 
Tribes  of  California,  finds  in  one  use  of  acorn  mush 
an  aboriginal  discovery  of  the  principle  of  the  Prus- 
sian pea-sausage ;  and  quotes  the  practice  of  a  central 
California  tribe,  who,  upon  starting  a  journey,  would 
pack  in  their  burden  baskets  a  quantity  of  the 
mush.  When  stopping  for  refreshment,  it  was  only 
necessary  to  dilute  a  portion  of  this  with  water  and 
dinner  was  ready.  A  squaw,  the  traditional  burden- 
bearer,  could  carry  thirty  pounds,  enough  to  last 
two  persons  perhaps  a  fortnight.  Naturally  so  im- 
portant an  element  as  the  acorn  in  the  tribal  life 
became  associated  with  religious  ceremonial  as  well 
as  incorporated  in  native  poetry;  and  the  approach 

73 


USEFUL  WILD  PLANTS 

of  the  autumnal  gathering  of  the  nuts  was  celebrated 
with  dances  and  songs  of  thanksgiving  and  rejoicing. 
One  of  these  songs,  quoted  by  Powers,  is  Englished 
thus: 

"The  acorns  come  down  from  heaven; 
I  plant  the  short  acorns  in  the  valley; 
I  plant  the  long  acorns  in  the  valley; 
I  sprout,  I,  the  black  acorn  sprout; 
I  sprout." 

Such  dances  (and  they  still  have  some  vogue  in  the 
remoter  parts  of  the  State)  were  night  atfairs  in 
the  open,  stamped  out  in  the  glow  of  blazing  log 
fires  to  the  accompaniment  of  minor  melodies  of 
fascinating  appeal,  the  words  of  the  songs  repeated 
endlessly  and  emphasized  with  dramatic  gestures, 
until  the  morning  star  appeared  in  the  east.  To  this 
day  the  oak  groves  in  those  parts  of  California 
where  any  considerable  Lidian  population  still 
lingers  are  invested  with  traditional  acorn  rights, 
and  recognized  by  general  consent  as  the  harvest 
grounds  of  particular  communities,  none  poaching 
upon  the  preserves  of  another. 

Traveling  in  mountainous  regions  of  the  West 
where  coniferous  forests  prevail,  one  sometimes 
comes  upon  the  remains  of  large  camp-fires  strewTi 
roundabout  with  charred  pine-cones  and  twig  ends. 

74 


THE  ACORN  AS  HUMAN  FOOD 

These  are  associated  with  another  sort  of  nut^  har- 
vest, that  of  the  Pinon  or  Pine-iint,  the  phimp,  oily 
seed  of  certain  species  of  the  Far  AVestern  pines. 
The  most  esteemed  nut-pines  are  the  Two-leaved 
Pine  {Pinus  edulis,  Engelm.),  a  low,  round-topped 
tree,  generally  kno^\ai  by  its  Spanish  name  pinon  and 
common  from  Southern  Colorado  to  Texas  and  west- 
ward to  Arizona  and  Utah;  the  closelv  related  One- 
leaved  Pine  (P.  monophyUa,  Torr.),  the  pinon  of  the 
Great  Basin  region  and  desert  slopes  of  the  Cali- 
fornia Sierras;  the  Digger  Pine  (P.  Sahiniana, 
Dough),  a  widely  distributed  species  of  the  Cali- 
fornia foothills  and  lower  mountain  slopes ;  and 
the  stately  Sugar  Pine  (P.  Lamhertiaua,  Dough), 
whose  huge  cones  are  frequently  a  foot  and  a 
half  long  or  more.  The  ^^nuts"  of  these  species 
vary  from  one-half  to  three-quarters  of  an  inch  in 
length,  with  thin  shells  easy  but  rather  tedious  to 
crack.  The  meat  is  delicious  in  flavor  even  to  white 
people,  tender,  sweet,  and  highly  nutritious.  They 
are,  moreover,  of  easiest  digestibility,  so  that  even 
delicate  stomachs  are  undisturbed  by  them.  Under 
the  name  of  pifions  they  are  sold  in  towns  through- 
out the  Southwest  as  well  as  Mexico,  where  another 

1  The   word    "nut"   is   used    in    this   chapter    in   its   popular   sense 
rather  than  with  botanical  accuracy. 

17) 


USEFUL  WILD  PLANTS 

species  of  nut-pine  {Pinus  cemhroides,  Zucc.)  is  in- 
digenous. The  Parry  Pine  (P.  quadrifoUa,  Sudw.) 
is  another  good  nut-pine,  abundant  in  some  parts 
of  lower  California,  but  only  sparingly  found  on  the 
United  States  side  of  the  border.  John  Muir,  in  his 
picturesque  way,  characterizes  the  nut-pine  forests 
as  ^'the  bountiful  orchards  of  the  red  man.'' 

Pine  seeds  are  ripe  in  autumn,  and  the  Lidian 
method  of  gathering  them  is  to  cut  or  knock  the  un- 
opened cones  from  the  trees  and  then  roast  them  in 
a  camp  fire.  This  serves  to  dry  out  the  pitch  and 
open  the  cones,  from  which  the  nuts  are  then  easily 
extracted.  The  pinon  harvest  among  the  South- 
western Indians  is  a  joyous  time,  and  what  they  do 
not  themselves  consume  is  readily  turned  into  money 
at  the  traders'.  Dr.  Edward  Palmer,  a  veteran 
botanical  collector  w^hose  notes  are  enlivened  by 
many  a  human  touch,  describes  a  scene  of  this  kind 
which  he  witnessed  among  the  Cocopahs  of  Lower 
California.  ^'It  was  an  interesting  sight  to  see  these 
children  of  nature  with  their  dirty,  laughing  faces, 
parching  and  eating  the  pine  nuts  ...  by  the  hand- 
ful. ...  At  last  we  had  the  privilege  of  seeing  prim- 
itive Americans  gathering  their  uncultivated  crop 
from  primeval  groves."  Though  edible  raw,  the 
nuts  are  preferably  toasted,  which  may  be  done  very 

76 


THE  ACORN  AS  HUMAN  FOOD 

comfortably  in  a  vessel  kept  in  motion  over  a  slow 
fire,  as  peanuts  are  heated.  Not  only  is  the  flavor 
improved  thereby,  but  the  sweetness  of  the  kernel 
is  ensured  for  a  longer  time. 

The  value  of  the  pinou  was  quickly  recognized  by 
the  Spanish  conquerors  of  New  Mexico,  and  Fray 
Alonzo  de  Benavides  in  his  famous  Memorial  to  the 
King  of  Spain  (1630)  makes  particular  mention  of 
the  Pihon  trees,  marvelous  to  him  '^because  of  their 
nuts  so  large  and  tender  to  crack  and  the  trees  and 
cones  so  small  and  the  quantity  so  interminable.'* 
It  seems  that  at  that  early  day  there  was  trade  in 
New  Mexico  pinons  with  the  Mexican  capital,  a 
thousand  miles  away,  where,  Benavides  tells  us,  they 
were  worth  at  wholesale  twenty-three  to  twenty-four 
pesos  the  fanega.  They  retail  to-day  in  city  shops 
of  our  Southwest  at  about  twenty  cents  per  pound. 

In  taking  leave  of  the  pines,  a  word  should  be  said 
about  the  fruits  of  their  cousins,  the  Junipers  of 
familiar  habit.  Although  reckoned  as  a  conifer,  the 
Juniper  bears  seed  vessels  that  are  not  cones  in 
the  popular  acceptance  of  that  word,  but  berry-like, 
due  to  the  growing  together  of  the  fleshy  cone- 
scales,  with  a  compact  pulp  around  the  seeds.  The 
resinous  quality  of  these  ^* berries"  in  most  species 
i-enders  them  repugnant  to  the  human  palate,  but  in 

77 


USEFUL  WILD  PLANTS 

a  few  cases  this  feature  is  much  reduced  and  the 
*' berries''  are  relished  because  of  the  sweet  flavor 
of  their  mealy  pulp.  In  this  edible  class  are  the 
fruits  of  the  California  Juniper  {Jumperus  Cali- 
fornica,  Carr.),  the  Utah  Juniper  {J.  Utahensis, 
Lem.),  and  the  Check-barked  or  Alligator  Juniper 
(J.  pachyphlaea,  Torr.).  The  first  two  are  stunted 
trees  or  shrubs  of  arid  regions  of  pure  desert.  The 
last  is  a  tree  attaining  sometimes  a  height  of  fifty 
feet  or  more,  abundant  at  rather  high  elevations  in 
Arizona,  New  Mexico  and  Southwestern  Texas,  and 
remarkable  for  its  thick,  hard  bark,  deeply  furrowed 
and  checked  in  squares.  The  ^'berries"  of  all  these 
species  have  been  approved  by  Indian  palates,  and 
are  eaten  either  raw  or  dried  and  ground  into  a 
meal  and  prepared  as  mush  or  cakes.  Under  ne- 
cessity they  might  serve  to  keep  body  and  soul 
together,  those  of  the  Alligator  Juniper  being  con- 
sidered the  best.  Cakes  made  from  these  are  said 
on  good  authority  to  be  palatable  even  to  whites, 
and  to  have  the  merit  of  easy  digestibility. 

Little  known  to  Americans  but  possessing  a  fas- 
cination all  its  own  is  the  so-called  Wild  Hazel,  Goat- 
nut  or  Sheep-nut,  the  fruit  of  a  non-deciduous,  gray- 
ish-green shrub,  Shnmondsia  Californica,  Nutt., 
locally  abundant  along  the  mountain  borders  of  the 

78 


Jojoba 

(Simmondsia  Calif ornicaj 


79 


USEFUL  WILD  PLANTS 

desert  in  Soutliern  California  and  extending  into 
Arizona  and  northern  Mexico.  It  is  a  distant  cousin 
to  the  beloved  boxwood  of  old  gardens,  though  none 
but  a  botanist  would  suspect  the  relationship. 
The  plant  is  dioecious,  so  that  not  every  individual 
is  seed-bearing — only  those  possessing  pistillate 
flowers.  The  capsules  are  mature  in  early  autumn, 
and,  gaping  open,  disgorge  upon  the  ground  the  oily, 
chocolate-browTi  seeds,  which  are  of  about  the  size 
and  appearance  of  hazelnut  kernels.  These,  too, 
they  somewhat  resemble  in  taste,  but  are  much 
easier  of  consumption  because  nature  does  the 
cracking  for  you.  They  are  eaten  with  avidity  by 
children,  Indians,  sheep  and  goats.  Mexicans  call 
them  jojohas,  and  in  Los  Angeles  I  have  seen  them 
in  the  Spanish  quarter  in  the  shops  of  druggists,  who 
find  a  steady  sale  for  them  for  use  in  promoting  the 
growth  of  deficient  eyebrows!  For  this  purpose,  it 
seems,  they  are  boiled,  the  oil  extracted  and  this 
applied  externally.  The  seed's  reputation  as  a  hair 
restorer,  indeed,  is  rather  extended  in  the  South- 
west. Mexicans  in  Lower  California  put  it  to  still 
another  use,  which  mil  be  mentioned  in  the  chapter 
on  Beverage  Plants. 

According  to  M.  Leon  Dieguet  in   *^  Revue  des 
Sciences   Naturelles  Appliquees''    (October,  1895), 

80 


THE  ACOKN  AS  HUMAN  FOOD 

**an  analysis  of  the  fire-dried  seeds  shows  them  to 
contain  48.30%  of  fatty  matter.  The  oil  solidifies 
at  5°,  is  suitable  for  food  and  of  good  quality,  and 
possesses  the  immense  advantage  of  not  turning 
rancid.'^  The  shrub  has  been  recommended  for 
culture  in  the  desert  regions  of  the  French  Colonies 
of  North  Africa. 

There  is  a  beautiful  little  tree  called  the  California 
Buckeye  (Aesculus  Calif ornica,  Nutt.)  which  whitens 
with  its  fine  thyrses  of  bloom  the  hillsides  of  spring 
near  streams  in  central  and  northern  California.  In 
summer  and  autumn  it  acquires  another  sort  of  con- 
spicuousness  due  to  the  early  dropping  of  its  foliage, 
baring  the  limbs  even  in  August.  It  then  becomes 
a  very  skeleton  of  a  tree  upon  which  the  fruits, 
hanging  thick,  look  like  so  manj^  dry,  plump  figs. 
The  leathery  rind  of  the  latter  encloses  one  or  two 
thin-shelled  nuts,  shiny  and  reddish  brown  like  those 
of  the  tree^s  cousins,  the  Buckeyes  of  the  Middle 
West.  To  white  folk  these  nuts,  attractive  as  they 
appear,  seem  nevertheless  devoid  of  food  possibili- 
ties; indeed,  in  their  raw  state,  they  are  known  to 
be  poisonous.  That  the  Indian  should  have  discov- 
ered how  to  turn  them  into  fuel  for  the  human 
machine  seems,  therefore,  even  more  remarkable 
than   the   conversion   of   the   acorn   into   an   edible 

81 


USEFUL  WILD  PLANTS 

ration.     Yet  that  is  what  the  Indian  did,  by  a  method 
that  consists  essentially  in  roasting  the  nuts  and  then 
washing  out  the  poison.     One  wonders  how  many 
prehistoric  Calif ornians  died  martyrs  in  the  perfect- 
ing of  the  process.     Mr.  Chesnut,  in  his  treatise  al- 
ready quoted  on  California  Indian  uses  of  plants,  re- 
cords in  detail  how  the  transformation  into  edibility 
is  accomplished :  The  Buckeyes  are  placed  in  the  con- 
ventional stone-lined  baking  pit  which  has  been  first 
made  hot  with  a  fire ;  they  are  then  covered  over  with 
earth  and  allowed  to  steam  for  several  hours,  until 
the  nuts   have   acquired   the   consistency   of  boiled 
potatoes.     They  may  then  be  either  sliced,  placed 
in  a  basket  and  soaked  in  running  water  for  from 
two  to  five  days   (depending  upon  the  thinness  of 
the  slices),  or  mashed  and  rubbed  up  with  w^ater 
into  a  paste  (the  thin  skin  being  incidentally  sepa- 
rated by  this  process)  and  after^vards  soaked  from 
one  to  ten  hours  in  a  sand  filter,  the  water  as  it 
drains  away  conveying  with  it  the  noxious  principle. 
It  was  customary  to   eat   the   resultant  mass  cold 
and  without  salt.     I  have  encountered  no  record  of 
the  similar  use  of  the  eastern  Buckeye.     The  Cali- 
f ornians'  treatment  of  the  Pacific  Coast  species  is 
an  interesting  instance,   I  think,   of  what  may  be 
done  with  the  most  unpromising  material. 

82 


CHAPTER  V 

SOME  LITTLE  REGARDED  WILD  FRUITS 

AND  BERRIES 

Great e  store  of  foiTest  frute  which  hee 

Had  for  his  food  late  gathered  from  the  tree. 

The  Faerie  Queene. 

NO  one  has  to  be  told  of  the  edibility  of  our  wild 
strawberries,  huckleberries,  currants,  cranber- 
ries, mulberries,  raspberries,  blackberries,  elderber- 
ries, grapes  and  persimmons;  nor  of  the  pleasure 
which  some  palates  find  in  the  bitterish  tang  that 
goes  with  the  familiar  wild  plums  and  cherries,  al- 
though the  only  use  to  which  most  housewives  con- 
sider these  last  fitted  is  the  manufacture  of  jams 
and  jellies.  It  is  more  to  the  purpose,  therefore,  in 
this  chapter  to  touch  upon  some  less  known  fniits 
of  the  hedge  and  heath — using  the  word  fruit  in  its 
limited  popular  sense  as  based  on  succulency,  rather 
than  with  botanical  accuracy. 

Throughout  the  basin  of  the  upper  IMissouri  and 
from  Saskatchewan   to   New  Mexico,   the   Buffalo- 

83 


USEFUL  WILD  PLANTS 

berry  (Shepherdia  argentea,  Nutt.)  is  at  home.  In 
the  journals  of  travelers  in  the  upper  plains  two  or 
three  generations  ago,  no  bush  is  more  often  men- 


BUFFALO-BERRY 

(Shepherdia  argentea) 

tioned  than  this.  By  the  French  voyageurs  and  en- 
gages it  was  called  graisse  de  hoeuf,  that  is,  ''beef 
fat, ' '  which  seems  in  harmony  with  the  story  I  have 
read  that  the  name  Buffalo-berry  is  derived  from  the 

84 


LITTLE  REGAllDED  WILD  FRUITS 

fact  that  it  was  a  customaiy  garnish  to  the  monot- 
onous buffalo  steaks  and  tongue  of  those  early  days. 
The  plant  is  a  somewhat  spiny  shrub  or  small  tree 
with  silvery,  scurfy  leaves,  and  forms  at  times  ex- 
tensive and  all  but  impenetrable  thickets.  The 
species  is  dioecious,  and  only  the  pistillate  plant 
bears  fruit;  but  that  does  it  abundantly — tight 
clusters  of  small,  scarlet  berries,  so  sour  as  to  find 
few  takers  until  the  frosts  of  October  temper  their 
acerbity.  Then  they  are  pleasant  enough  whether 
raw  or  cooked,  though  still  with  a  touch  of  acid 
astringency  that  makes  for  sprightliness.  Jelly 
made  from  them  ranks  especially  high,  and  to  this 
end  they  are  gathered  by  white  dwellers  in  the  re- 
gions where  they  grow.  In  fact,  the  plant  is  not  in- 
frequently found  transferred  to  gardens.  The  ber- 
ries used  to  be  one  of  the  Indians'  dietary  staples, 
lending  a  lively,  fruity  flavor  to  the  unending  stews 
and  mushes  of  the  red  men.  There  is  a  related 
plant,  the  Silverberry  (Elaeagnus  arrjentca,  Pursh), 
native  to  much  the  same  region  and  often  cultivated 
in  gardens  for  the  sake  of  the  fragrant,  silvery, 
funnel-form  flowers  and  attractive  foUage.  Its 
white,  scurfy  berries,  while  in  a  sense  edible,  are  too 
dry  and  mealy  for  most  peoiDle,  and  are  left  to  the 
prairie  chickens. 

85 


USEFUL  WILD  PLANTS 

The  Nightshade  family,  to  which  we  owe  the 
tomato,  the  potato  and  the  egg-phmt  (as  well  as  the 
tobacco  and  some  very  poisonous  fruits),  is  rep- 
resented in  our  wild  flora  by  a  number  of  plants 
bearing  edible  fiTiit.  Of  these  the  red  berries  of 
two  shrubs  of  the  deserts  and  semi-deserts  of 
Arizona,  New  Mexico  and  Utah  resemble  tiny 
tomatoes  and  go  among  the  Spanish-speaking  popu- 
lation under  the  name  of  iomatillo,  that  is,  '^ little 
tomato."  They  may  be  eaten  raw,  if  perfectly  ripe, 
or  boiled  and  consumed  either  as  a  separate  dish  or 
used  to  enliven  stews  and  soups.  Dried,  they  look 
like  currants  and  may  be  stored  away  for  winter  use. 
Botanically  the  plants  are  Lycium  pallidum,  Miers, 
and  L.  Andersonii,  Gray.  They  are  more  or  less 
spiny  shrubs,  with  small,  pale,  narrowish  leaves, 
bunched  in  the  axils  of  the  branchlets,  and  bearing 
funnel-form  greenish  or  whitish  flowers — those  of 
L.  pallidum  nearly  an  inch  long;  of  L.  Andersonii 
much  smaller.  To  the  Navajo  Indians,  the  berries  of 
the  former  have  a  sacred  significance  and  Doctor 
Matthews  states  that  in  his  day  they  were  used  in 
sacrificial  offerings  to  a  Navajo  demi-god.  Similarly 
among  the  Zufiis  the  plant  is  sacred  to  one  of  their 
priestly  fraternities,  and  treated  with  reverence  as 
an  intercessor  with  the  gods  of  the  harvest.     When 

86 


LITTLE  REGARDED  WILD  FRUITS 

the  berries  appear,  certain  individual  plants  are 
sprinkled  with  sacred  meal  and  this  business-like 
prayer  proffered:  ''My  father,  I  give  you  prayer 
meal;  I  want  many  peaches."  ^ 

To  the  same  family  belongs  the  genus  Physalis, 
some,  perhaps  most,  species  of  which  yield  fruits 
that  may  be  eaten.  They  are  distinguished  by  a 
bladdery  calyx  which  loosely  envelops  the  small, 
tomato-like  berry.  These  plants  are  known  to 
Americans  as  Ground  Cherries,  and  to  the  Spanish- 
speaking  residents  of  our  Southwest  as  tomates  del 
campoy  that  is,  ''wild  tomatoes."  Of  the  score  or  so 
of  species  indigenous  to  the  United  States,  Pliysalis 
viscosa,  Pursh,  is  one  of  the  best  known — a  hairy, 
sticky  perennial,  common  in  fields  east  of  the  Mis- 
sissippi from  Ontario  to  the  Gulf.  The  nodding, 
greenish-yellow  flowers  have  a  purplish-brown  cen- 
ter; and  the  yellow  fruit  is  reported  on  excellent  au- 
thority to  be  the  best.  A  species  producing  red  fruit 
(P.  longifolia,  Nutt.),  found  wild  from  Nebraska  to 
Texas  and  westward  to  Arizona,  has  been  thought 
worthy  of  cultivation  by  the  Zuni  Indians,  who  used 
to  grow  it,  and  perhaps  still  do,  in  the  women's 
quaint  little  gardens  on  the  slope  of  the  river  Zuni — 

1  Stevenson.  "Ethnobotany  of  the  Zuiii  Indians."     30th  Ann.  Kept. 
Bur.  Amer.  Ethnolofrv'- 

87 


Tomato  del  Campo 
(Physalis  longifoliaj 


88 


LITTLE  REGARDED  WILD  FRUITS 

gardens  familiar  to  every  observant  visitor  at  this 
famous  old  pueblo.  A  favorite  method  of  using  the 
berries,  according  to  Stevenson,^  was  to  boil  them 
and  crush  them  in  a  mortar  with  raw  onions,  chili 
and  coriander  seeds.  Among  the  wiiites,  the  Ground 
Cherries,  when  used  at  all,  are  made  into  pre- 
serves. 

In  the  Rose  sisterhood — a  familv  that  has  c'iven 
us  a  wealth  of  garden  fruits — are  a  number  of  wild- 
ings of  more  or  less  food  value.  Next  to  the  wild 
strawberries,  raspberries  and  blackberries,  none  per- 
haps stands  higher  in  pojDular  favor  than  the 
Amelanchier,  in  popular  parlance  Service-berry, 
June-berry,  Shad-bush  or  Sugar-pear.-^  It  is  found 
with  specific  variations  in  leaf  and  fruit  on  both  our 
seaboards,  as  well  as  in  the  Middle  West,  a  small 
tree  or  shrub  mth  rather  roundish,  serrated  leaves, 
and  producing  in  late  spring  or  early  sunnner  loose 
clusters  of  round  or  sometimes  pea-shaped,  crimson 
or  dark-purple  berries.  These  are  juicy,  with  a 
pleasant  taste  not  unlike  huckleberries.  To  white 
settlers    throughout   the    continent   this   berry   has 

2  "Ethnobotany  of  the  Zufii  Indians." 

3  Service-hcrry,  a  name  transferred  from  an  English  species  of 
Pyriis,  whose  fruit  was  known  as  serh,  scnc  or  service;  June- 
herry,  because  the  fruit  generally  ripens  in  June;  Shad-bush,  be- 
cause blooming  when  the  shad  are  running  in  Eastern  rivers. 

89 


90 


LITTLE  REGARDED  WILD  FRUITS 

always  been  an  abundant  wild  stand-by  for  fruit 
pies.  Old  time  Indians  used  it  not  only  fresh  but 
dried  for  winter  consumption.  Lewis  and  Clarke's 
journal  mentions  a  berry  that  is  undoubtedly  this, 
which  the  Lidians  were  observed  j)reserving  by 
pounding  masses  together  into  ''loaves"  of  ten  to 
fifteen  pounds  weight.  These  w^ould  keep  sweet 
throughout  the  season  and  would  be  used  as  needed 
by  breaking  off  pieces  to  be  soaked  in  water  and 
dropped  into  stew^s.  Strong  competitors  with  man 
for  the  berries  are  the  birds  and  the  bears. 

Another  western  berry  that  has  appealed  strongly 
to  Lidian  tastes  but  not,  so  far  as  I  know,  to  ours, 
is  the  fruit  of  a  species  of  Buckthorn  {BJiamnus 
crocea,  Nutt.).  Doubtless  there  is  nutrition  in  the 
berries,  but  they  possess,  according  to  Dr.  Edward 
Palmer,  the  peculiar  faculty  of  temporarily  tinge- 
ing  red  the  body  of  one  wlio  consumes  them  in 
quantity.  He  tells  a  gruesome  story  of  accompan}'- 
ing  as  surgeon  a  troop  of  United  States  soldiers  in 
pursuit  of  a  band  of  twenty-two  Apache  Indians  in 
Arizona,  who  were  eventually  surprised  in  their 
camp  and  killed  outright.  The  bodies  of  all  were 
discovered  to  be  beautifullv  reticulated  in  red  from 
the  juice  of  the  Rliamnus  berries  on  wliich  the 
Indians  had  been  gorging,   the   color  having  been 

91 


USEFUL  WILD  PLANTS 

taken   up   hy  the   blood   and   diffused  through  the 
vsniallost  veins. 

Our  American  Hawthorns  (botanically,  Crataegus^ 
a  L-enus  which  some  modern  botanists  have  split  up 
into  a  lioi)eless  multitude  of  confused  species)  bear 
clusters  of  tiny,  alluring  apples  in  various  colors — 
yrllow,  ])ur])le,  scarlet,  dull  red,  some  almost  black. 
Many  of  these  are  admirable  for  jelly  making. 
Among  the  best  are  the  large  haws  of  Crataegus 
mollis  (T.  k  G.)  Scheele,  about  an  inch  in  diameter 
and  of  a  bright  scarlet  color.  The  species  is  fairly 
common  throughout  the  eastern  United  States  and 
Uontral  West.  The  Summer  Haw  {Crataegus  flava, 
Ait.),  a  small  tree  of  the  Southern  States,  bears 
somewliat  pear-shaped,  yellowish  fruits,  one-half  to 
three-fourths  of  an  inch  in  diameter,  w^hich  are  also 
esteemed  for  jellies,  as  are  the  shining  blackish  ber- 
ries of  the  Black  ITaw  {Crataegus  Douglasii,  Lindl.), 
common  in  the  Pacific  Northwest,  and  sweet  and 
juicy  enough  to  be  pleasant  eating  uncooked.  In 
fact,  when  it  comes  to  providing  raw  material  for  the 
jelly  makers,  almost  any  thicket  in  late  summer  will 
yield  something,  for  even  the  hips  of  the  Wild  Rose 
have  been  turned  advantageously  to  that  use.  The 
hips  of  certain  species,  that  is;  those  being  pre- 
ferred whose  content  is  juiciest  and  fleshiest — as,  for 

92 


LITTLE  REGARDED  WILD  FRUITS 

instance,  the  plump  berries  of  the  beautiful  Xutka 
Rose  of  the  Far  Northwest.     Frost  is  an  essential 


American  Hawthorn 
(Crataegus  mollis) 

agent  in  arousing  palatability  in  most  sorts  of  rose 

fruits. 

93 


USEFUL  WILD  PLANTS 

Oil  the  Pacific  Slope  one  of  the  cherished  berries 
for  jelly  making  is  the  Manzanita  {Arctostaphylos 
of  several  species),  a  remarkable  evergreen  shrub, 
or  sometimes  a  small  tree,  whose  shiny,  chocolate- 
colored  trunk  and  twisting  branches,  as  hard  as  bone, 
are  familiar  to  every  traveler  in  the  California 
mountains.  The  popular  name  is  Spanish  for  ''little 
a])i)U',"  and  aptly  describes  the  appearance  of  the 
fruit.  This  is  borne  very  abundantly  and  is  ripe  in 
mid-summer.  The  mountain  folk,  describing  the 
plant,  will  tell  you  there  are  two  kinds,  one  with 
smooth  berries  and  the  other  with  sticky  ones:  but 
])otanists  are  not  so  easily  satisfied,  and  have 
described  at  least  a  dozen  species.  The  one  most 
often  used  for  jelly  is  Arctostaphylos  Manzanita, 
Parry,  common  in  mountainous  regions  throughout 
the  length  of  California,  and  also,  I  believe,  in  parts 
of  Arizona  and  Utah.  The  berries  are  smooth 
skinned,  with  an  agreeable  acid  flavor,  and 
mitritious,  but  dry,  mealy  and  seedy.  Chewed  as 
one  travels,  they  are  a  capital  thirst  preventive,  but 
the  pulp  should  be  very  sparingly  swallowed,  as  it 
is  quite  hard  to  digest.  Indians,  in  former  days, 
however,  set  great  store  by  them  as  an  article  of 
diet,  and  in  specific  Manzanita  tracts,  just  as  in  the 
oak-groves,  there  were  recognized  tribal  or  family 

94 


Maxzaxita 
(Arctostaphylos  ManzanitaJ 


95 


USEFUL  WILD  PLANTS 

rights.  The  berries  were  consumed  either  dried  and 
trround  into  pinole,  or  cooked  as  a  mush,  or  in  the 
fresh  state.  Death  from  intestinal  stoppage  is  said 
to  liave  sometimes  resulted,  however,  from  too  free 
indulgence  in  the  uncooked  fruit."*  A  favorite 
aboriginal  use,  too,  was  in  the  manufacture  of  cider, 
which  will  be  described  in  the  chapter  on  Beverage 
Plants. 

To  wliite  cooks  the  Manzanita  is  of  negligible  in- 
terest except,  as  already  hinted,  as  a  basis  for  a  jelly, 
which  is  famously  good.  The  following  recipe  I 
have  from  ^Ir.  Edmund  C.  Jaeger  of  Riverside, 
(California:  Select  berries,  by  preference  of  the 
smooth-skinned  variety,  which  are  more  juicy  than 
tlie  others,  picking  them  when  full  grown  but  still 
green,  say  about  the  first  of  June.  Put  them  in  a 
boiler  with  cold  water  to  cover;  and  after  bringing 
them  to  a  boil,  let  them  simmer  until  thoroughly 
cooked  through:  then  pour  into  a  cheese-cloth  sack 
and  press  out  the  juice.  This  will  have  a  cloudy 
look.  Add  sugar  in  the  proportion  of  pound  for 
pound,  and  boil  till  the  liquid  jells.  The  sugar  clari- 
fies the  juice,  and  the  jelly  is  a  beautiful,  clear,  amber 
red.     Should  the  berries  be  too  ripe,  there  will  be 

*  Chesnut.     "Plants  Used  by  the  Indians  of  Mendocino  Co.,  Cali- 
fornia." 

96 


LITTLE  REGARDED  WILD  ERUITS 

failure  to  jell,  but  an  excellent  table  syruj)  is  the  re- 
sult, instead. 

AVild  currants,  gooseberries,  plums  and  cherries  all 
play  into  the  jelly  maker's  hands;  and  so  do  the 
acid,  scarlet  berries  of  the  eastern  Barlx*rry  (Ber- 
heris  CmiadensiSj  Pursh),  found  in  mountain  woods 


Oregon  Grape 
(Berheris  aquifoliumj 

from  Virginia  to  Georgia,  as  well  as  of  the  European 
Barberry  {B.  vulgaris,  L.)  which  has  become  a  wild 
plant  in  some  sections.  On  the  Pacific  slope  another 
Barberry  is  the  familiar  Oregon  Grape  [Berheris 
aquifolitmi,  Pursh),  a  shrub  two  to  six  feet  high, 
with   evergreen   pinnate    leaves    of   seven    to   nine 

97 


USEFUL  WILD  PLANTS 

loathorv,  hollv-liko  leaflets,  ahundant  in  rich  woods 
among  rocks,  especially  in  northern  California  and 
Oregon,  of  which  latter  State  it  is  the  floral  emblem. 
Erect    clusters    of    small    but    conspicuous    yellow 


Oregon  Grape 
(Berheris  aquifolium) 


flowers  adorn  the  bushes  in  the  spring,  succeeded  in 
autumn  by  blue  berries  of  a  pleasant  flavor  which 
are  useful  for  jelly  making  and  also  as  the  basis  of  a 
refreshing  drink.     Cousin  to  the   Barberry  is  the 


98 


LITTLE  REGARDED  WILD  FRUITS 

familiar  May  Apple,  Wild  Lemon  or  American  ^fan- 
drake  {PodnplnjUum  pelt  alum,  L.),  a  common  herb, 
with  umbrella-like  leaves  sheeting  the  gromid  in  rich 


May  Apple 
(Podophyllum  pel  tat  urn) 

woodlands  and  shady  meadows  throughout  the  region 
east  of  the  Alississippi  from  Canada  to  the  Gulf. 
The  pear-shaped  fruit,  about  the  size  of  a  butternut, 
has  claims  to  edibility.     When  green  it  exhales  a 

99 


USEFUL  WILD  PLANTS 

rank,  rather  repulsive  odor,  but  when  fully  matured, 
all  that  is  changed  into  an  agreeable  fragrance,  hard 
to  define — a  sort  of  composite  of  cantaloupe,  summer 
ajiples  and  fox  grapes.  Brought  indoors,  two  or 
three  will  soon  perfume  a  wliole  room.  As  to 
palatability,  tastes  differ:  some  people  loathe  the 
flavor;  others  are  fond  of  it.  It  ought  not  to  be  con- 
dennied  on  the  evidence  of  unripe  specimens,  but 
should  be  tested  fully  mature,  at  which  stage  the 
little  *' apples"  are  yellowish  in  color  and  drop  into 
the  hand  at  a  touch.  They  may  be  eaten  raw  in 
moderation,  the  outer  rind  being  first  removed,  or 
they  may  be  converted  into  jell}^  Care  should  be 
exercised  with  respect  to  the  leaves  and  the  root, 
which  are  drastic  and  poisonous. 

Occurring  throughout  the  same  range  with  the 
May  Apple,  but  much  less  common  east  of  the 
Alleghenies,  is  a  small  tree  affecting  stream  borders 
and  producing  in  early  spring  odd,  solitary,  purplish 
flowers  pendulous  from  the  leaf  axils  at  the  same 
time  with  the  opening  leaves.  It  is  the  North 
American  Papaw  {Asimina  triloba,  Dunal).  In  Sep- 
tember or  October  it  bears  sparse  bunches  of  oblong, 
greenish,  pulpy  fruits  each  four  or  five  inches  in 
length  and  an  inch  or  two  in  diameter,  known  as 
pai)aws,  wild  bananas,  or,  by  old  time  French  set- 

100 


LITTLE  REGARDED  WILD  ERLTTS 

tiers,  asimines — a  Gallicized  form  of  the  Assiniboine 
Indian  name  of  the  fruits.  They  are  unquestionably 
of  some  food  value,  though  again  tastes  differ  on  the 
point  of  their  palatability.  *' Edible  for  boys'^  is  the 
classing  they  get  from  one  good  authority;  but,  on 
the  other  hand,  the  sweet,  aromatic  flavor  is  distinctly 
pleasant  to  some  maturer  palates.  Perhaps,  as  I 
have  heard  it  suggested,  the  divergence  in  views  may 
be  due  in  some  degree  to  the  fact  of  different  natural 
varieties  within  the  species.  Our  Papaw  is  a  far- 
strayed  member  of  the  tropical  family  that  includes 
the  Anonas — the  cherimoya,  the  sour-sop  and  the 
custard  apples.  Another  plant  tribe  of  the  tropics 
that  finds  a  small  representation  in  the  United 
States  is  the  Passion  Flower  familv,  noted  for  its 
remarkable  blossoms  in  which  the  devout  have 
thought  to  see  a  perfect  symbol  of  the  Divine  Pas- 
sion. There  is  one  species,  commonly  called  Maypo}) 
(Passiflora  incarnata,  L.),  so  frequent  along  fence 
rows  and  in  cultivated  fields  of  the  Southern  States 
as  to  be  in  the  class  of  a  weed.  The  fruit  is  a  vol- 
low,  egg-shaped  berry,  a  couple  of  inches  long,  ac- 
counted edible,  but  more  esteemed  when  made  into 
jelly  than  when  eaten  raw.  Nevertheless  to  some 
tastes  the  flavor  is  agreeable.  I  fancy  it  is  to  this 
plant  that  John  Muir  refers  in  his  "Thousand  Mile 

101 


USEFUL  WILD  PLANTS 

TTalk  to  the  Gulf,"  quoting  for  it  a  local  Georgia 
name,  ''Apricot  vine,"  having  a  superb  flower  ''and 
the  most  delicious  fruit  I  have  ever  eaten." 

The  TTeatli  family,  Avliich  gives  us  the  huckleberry, 
])hu'l)erry  and  cranberry  (too  well  known  to  be 
treated  here),  as  well  as  the  manzanita  already  de- 
scribed, has  two  or  three  other  members  growing 
wild  and  bearing  berries  whose  edibility  is  touched 
with  a  special  grace  of  spiciness.  One  of  these  is 
the  familiar  Teaberry,  Checkerberry  or  Wintergreen 
{GaidtJieria  procumhens,  L.),  an  aromatic,  creeping, 
evergreen  vine  usually  of  coniferous  w^oods,  from 
subarctic  America  southward  through  the  eastern 
United  States  to  Georgia.  The  crimson-coated  ber- 
ries, about  the  size  of  peas,  are  pleasant  morsels  and 
make  a  welcome  feature  in  a  small  way  in  the 
autumnal  displays  of  fruit  venders  in  Eastern  cities. 
A  Pacific  Coast  species  of  Gaultheria  with  black- 
purple  berries  {G.  Shallon,  Pursh)  has  become  com- 
monly known  b}^  the  name  of  Salal,  a  corrupted  form 
of  its  Indian  designation.  It  is  a  small  shrub,  one  to 
three  feet  high,  with  sticky,  hairy  stems,  frequent 
in  the  redwood  forests  of  Xorthern  California,  and 
thence  northward  in  shady  woods  as  far  as  British 
Columbia.  Lewis  and  Clarke's  journal  contains 
several  references  to  the  Oregon  Indians'  fondness 

102 


Salal 
(Gcuultheria  Shallon) 


103 


USEFUL  WILD  PLANTS 

for  the  berries,  which,  under  the  names  of  Shallon 
and  Shewel,  seem  to  have  been  a  staple  of  diet  with 
them.  Th()ui;li  thick  of  skin  they  are  well  flavored. 
Paradoxical  enough,  it  is  the  desert  that  grows 
some  of  our  most  important  and  most  juicy  wild 
fruits.  Among  these  the  plump  pods  of  species  of 
^'ucca  or  Spanish  Dagger,  abundant  throughout  the 
arid  regions  of  the  Southwest,  are  of  recognized 
worth.  One  of  the  most  widely  distributed  is  Yucca 
I)arcafa,  Torr.,  called  by  the  Mexican  population 
PahniUa  ancha  or  Ddtil — the  former  name  mean- 
ing ''broad-leaved  little  date-palm,"  and  the  latter, 
"the  date  fruit."  The  fruit  is  succulent,  plump, 
and  in  shape  like  a  short  banana,  and  is  borne  in 
large,  upright  clusters,  seedy  but  nutritious.  The 
taste  is  agreeably  sweet  when  fulh^  developed,  which 
is  in  the  autumn  if  birds  and  bugs  spare  the  pods 
so  long.  Indians  have  always  regarded  the  Ddtil 
as  a  luxury.  As  I  write  there  comes  vividly  to  mind 
a  chilly,  mid- August  morning  in  the  Arizona  plateau 
country,  when  two  Navajo  shepherdesses  left  their 
straggling  flock  to  share  in  the  warmth  of  our  camp 
fire  and  pass  the  time  of  day.  As  they  squatted  by  the 
flame,  I  noticed  that  one  slipped  some  objects  from 
her  blanket  into  the  hot  ashes,  but  with  such  deft 

104 


LITTLE  REGARDED  WILD  FRUITS 

secretiveness  that  my  eyes  failed  to  detect  what  they 
were.  Later  as  the  woman  rose  to  go,  she  raked 
awav  the  ashes  wdth  a  stick  and  drew  out  several 
blackened  Yucca  pods,  which  had  been  roasting  while 
we  talked.  I  can  testify  to  the  entire  palatal)ility  of 
this  cooked  fruit  (the  rind  being  first  removed), 
finding  it  pleasantly  suggestive  of  sweet  potato. 
Those  fruits  that  morning  were  still  green  when 
plucked.  Dr.  H.  H.  Rusby  informs  me  that  the  sliced 
pulp  of  the  nearly  ripe  j^ods  makes  a  pie  almost  in- 
distinguishable from  apple  pie.  The  ripe  fruit  may 
be  eaten  raw,  but  the  more  usual  custom  among  the 
Pueblo  Lidians,  who  would  travel  long  miles  in  the 
pre-education  days  to  gather  the  succulent,  yellow 
pods  and  bring  them  home  by  the  burro-load,  was  to 
cook  them.  Sometimes  they  were  simply  boiled,  and 
on  cooking  the  skin  was  removed,  since  it  then  sep- 
arates easily  from  the  pulp;  but  there  w^as  a  more 
complicated  process,  resulting  in  a  sort  of  conserve, 
that  was  considered  better.  This  w^as  to  bake  the 
fruit,  peel  it  and  remove  the  fibre,  and  then  boil  down 
the  pulp  to  a  firm  paste.  This  was  rolled  out  in 
sheets  of  about  an  inch  in  thickness,  and  carefully 
dried.  Afterwards  these  were  cut  up  into  con- 
venient sizes  and  laid  away  to  be  consumed  either 

105 


USEFUL  WILD  PLANTS 

as  a  sweetmeat,  or  dissolved  in  water  as  a  beverage, 
or  employed  like  molasses  on  tortillas  and  bread.^ 
The  voims:  flower  buds  of  this  and  some-  other 
species  of  Yucca  possess  a  considerable  content  of 
sugar  and  other  nutritive  principles,  and  by  the 
aborigines  are  considered  delicacies  ^vhen  cooked. 
Coville  records  a  custom  of  the  Panamint  Indians 
wlio  collected  the  swelling  buds  of  the  grotesque 
arborescent  Yucca  of  the  Mojave  Desert  kno\\m  as  the 
Joshua  tree  {Yucca  hrevifolia,  Engelm.)  and  roasted 
them  over  hot  coals,  eating  them  afterwards  either 
hot  or  cold. 

The  Yuccas  have  been  useful  to  the  desert  people 
in  other  ways  than  as  food,  and  we  shall  hear  of 
them  again  in  subsequent  chapters.  It  is  not  re- 
markable, therefore,  that  the  plant  is  imbued  with 
sacred  siignificance  and  enters  in  many  w^ays  into  na- 
tive religious  ceremonies.  Among  the  Navajos, 
Yucca  haccata  is  called  hoskawn  and  allusions  to  it 
are  of  frequent  occurrence  in  the  folk  lore  of  that 
interesting  race.  Its  leaves  are  the  material  out  of 
which  the  ceremonial  masks  employed  in  the  relig- 
ious rites  of  these  people  are  made.  The  Govern- 
ment has  given  particular  distinction  to  this  plant 

5  Bandelier,  quoted  by  Harrington  in  "Ethnobotany  of  the  Tewa 
Indians,"  Bull.  55,  Bur.  Amer.  Ethnology. 

106 


LITTLE  REGARDED  WILD  FRUITS 

by  bestowing  its  Spanish  name  on  tlio  "  Datil  Na- 
tional Forest"  of  New  Mexico. 

The  Cactus  family,  those  especial  plant  children 
of  the  desert,  yield  some  quite  choice  fruits,  though 
they  make  us  work  to  get  them,  hedged  al)out  as  they 
are  with  vicious  spines  and  bristles.  Of  several 
genera  indigenous  to  the  ITnited  States  producing 
edible  berries,  the  most  widely  distributed  is 
Opuntia,  embracing  tw^o  quite  diif erent  looking  divi- 
sions, one  with  broad,  flattened  joints  (the  Platopun- 
tias)  and  one  wdth  cylindric,  cane-like  joints  (the 
Cylindropimtias) .  Tlie  former  division  includes  the 
well-known  Prickly  Pears  or  Indian  Figs,  of  which 
two  species  {Optmiia  vulgaris^  Mill.,  and  0.  Rafi- 
nesquii,  Engelm.)  occur  in  sandy  or  sterile  soil  of 
the  Atlantic  seaboard.  Their  seedy,  lean,  insipid 
berries,  each  an  inch  or  so  long,  are  edible  in  a  way, 
but  they  are  not  at  all  in  th^  same  class  with  the 
fat,  juicy  ^' pears"  of  many  of  the  species  growing 
wild  in  the  Southwestern  desert  country,  where  the 
genus  is  best  represented.  Even  there,  there  is 
great  choice  in  the  fruits  of  different  species,  those 
of  the  broad-jointed  sort  being  much  the  best.  Such 
plants  are  called  nopal  by  the  Spanish-speaking 
Southw^esterners  and  the  fruit  tuna.  Among  these 
Opuntia  laevis,  Coult.,  and  the  varieties  of  0.  Engel- 

107 


USEFUL  WILD  PLANTS 

majuii  and  0.  Liudlieimeri  (the  last  abundant  in 
Sontliom  Calif ornia)  are  especially  valued.  Better 
than  these,  however,  are  certain  species  introduced 
a  century  or  more  ago  by  the  Franciscan  Mis- 
sionaries from  Mexico,  the  motherland  of  the  cacti. 
Tliese  are  Opuuiia  Tinia,  Mill.,  and  0.  Ficus-Indica, 
^lilL,  and  they  now  grow  wild  in  many  parts  of  Cal- 
ifornia, especially  about  the  old  Mission  towms,  the 
fruit  being  annually  harvested  by  the  Mexican  pop- 
ulation.    (See  illustration  facing  page  18.) 

The  gatherer  of  tunas  is  faced  by  two  difficulties 
— the  rigid,  needle-like  spines  that  bristle  on  all  sides 
of  the  plant,  and  tlie  small  tufts  of  tiny  spicules  that 
stud  the  fruit  itself.  The  latter  are  really  the  more 
dangerous,  because  a  touch  transfers  them  from  the 
tuna  to  the  picker  ^s  flesh,  there  to  stick  and  prick 
wickedly.  If  they  happen  to  get  into  the  mouth  or 
upon  the  tongue,  the  pain  is  persistent  and  agonizing. 
With  care,  however,  nothing  of  that  sort  need 
happen.  Armed  with  a  fork  and  a  sharp  knife,  you 
spear  your  tuna  firmly  with  the  fork,  give  it  a  wrench 
and  complete  the  parting  from  the  stem  by  a  slash 
of  the  knife.  The  next  step  is  to  peel  the  ''pear,'' 
wliich  is  made  up  of  a  pulpy,  seedy  heart  enveloped 
in  an  inedible  rind.  This  may  be  readily  got  rid  of 
in  the  following  way:     Handling  the  tuna  with  a 

108 


Gathering    tunas,    fruit    of    the    nopal    cactus,    CaHfornia. 


LITTLE  REGARDED  WILD  FRUITS 

glove  or  speared  upon  a  fork,  lay  it  upon  a  clean 
board,  and  holding  it  down  slice  off  each  end ;  then 
make  a  longitudinal  cut  through  the  rind  from  end 
to  end;  lay  open  both  flaps  of  the  rind,  which  may 
then  be  pressed  back,  separating  along  natural  lines 
from  the  pulp.  If  the  gathered  fruit  is  first  placed 
in  water  and  stirred  well,  the  spicules  are  to  a  con- 
siderable extent  washed  off.  (See  illustration,  page 
174.) 

Eaten  raw,  tunas  of  the  better  sort  are  refresh- 
ing and  agreeable  to  most  people,  though  the  bony 
seeds  are  an  annoyance  unless  one  swallows  them 
whole,  after  the  Mexican  fashion.  The  taste  differs 
somewhat  with  the  species,  those  that  I  have  eaten 
possessing  a  flavor  suggesting  watermelon.  The 
sugar  content  is  considerable,  and  a  very  good  synip 
may  be  obtained  by  boiling  the  peeled  fruits  until 
soft  enough  to  strain  out  the  seeds;  after  wdiich  the 
juice  may  be  boiled  down  further.  No  sugar  need 
be  added,  unless  a  very  sweet  syrup  is  needed.  Care 
should  be  exercised  to  select  fruit  that  is  really  ripe ; 
in  some  sorts  maturitv  is  slow  to  follow  coloration. 
After  all,  though,  it  is  Mexico  where  tuna  raising  and 
consumption  have  become  an  art,  and  the  tuna 
market  is  an  interesting  feature  in  many  Mexican 
to^\Tis.     During    the    time    of    the    harvest    whole 

109 


USEFUL  WILD  PLANTS 

families  go  to  the  hills  and  camp  out  in  the  Nopalcros 
(the  areas  where  the  cactus  grows)  and  live  prac- 
tically upon  tunas  alone.  Mr.  David  Griffiths,  in  his 
monograph  ''The  Tuna  as  a  Food  for  Man,"  ''  states 
that  at  such  times  about  two  hundred  tunas  a  day 
constitute  the  ration  of  one  individual.  Large 
(plant ities  are  dried  for  future  use  and  several  pro- 
ducts are  also  manufactured  from  the  fresh  fruit. 
One  of  these,  called  qiteso  cle  tuna  (that  is,  "tuna 
cheese"),  is  an  article  of  sale  in  the  Mexican 
quarters  of  our  Southwestern  to\\ms.  It  is  made  by 
reducing  the  seeded  tuna  pulps  to  an  evaporated 
paste,  and  is  sent  to  market  in  the  shape  of  small 
cheeses,  dark  red  or  almost  black. 

Another  member  of  the  Cactus  family  that  is  an 
important  food  source  in  the  Southwest  is  the 
Sahuaro  {Cereiis  giganteus,  Engelm.).  It  is 
Arizona's  floral  emblem,  and  abounds  throughout 
the  southwestern  part  of  that  State  and  across  the 
frontier  into  northern  Mexico,  forming  at  times  in 
the  desert  strange,  thin  forests  casting  attenuated 
shafts  of  shade.  It  is  one  of  the  world's  botanical 
marvels,  a  leafless  tree  with  fluted,  columnar  trunk 
and  scanty,  vertical  branches,  rising  sometimes  to 

cBull.   IIG  Bur.  Plant  Industry,  U.  S.  Dept.  Agriculture. 

110 


LITTLE  REGARDED  WILD  FRUITS 

the  height  of  sixty  feet  and  tipped  in  spring  witli 
numerous  creamy,  x)ink  flowers.  The  fruit  com- 
monly g'oes  by  its  Mexican  name,  pitahaya.  It 
ripens  in  June  and  Juh^,  and  somewhat  resembles 
the  tuna  in  form,  with  a  juicy,  seedy,  crimson  })ul]). 
To  civilized  tastes,  the  fresh  fruit  is  rather  mawkish, 
less  sweet  than  that  of  the  related  pitahaya  dnlcr^ 
which  is  common  on  the  Mexican  side  of  the  border 
and  is  borne  by  Cereus  Thurheri,  Engelm.  Never- 
theless the  Arizona  pitahaya  is  of  considerable  food 
value  and  highly  relished  by  the  Indians  of  the 
region,  particularly  the  older  generation  of  Papagos, 
who  make  a  festival  of  the  opening  of  the  pitahaya 
harvest,  dating  their  new  year  from  that  event,  and 
used  to  intoxicate  themselves  as  a  religious  duty 
upon  a  sort  of  wine  that  they  made  for  the  occasion 
from  the  fermented  first  fruits. 

The  i)itahayas  are  gathered  with  a  twenty-foot 
pole,  made  of  the  rod-like  ribs  of  some  dead  sahuaro 
lashed  together  and  having  a  hook  alhxed  to  the  tip, 
with  which  the  fruit  is  dislodged.  Such  part  of  the 
crop  as  is  not  consumed  raw  is  boiled  down,  as  in  the 
case  of  the  tuna,  the  seeds  removed,  and  then  boiled 
again  until  the  mass  is  reduced  to  a  syrup.  This  is 
of  a  clear,  light  brown  color,  and  pleasantly  sweet, 

111 


USEFUL  WILD  PLANTS 

makin<i^  a  fair  substitute  for  molasses  and  corre- 
spondingly good  on  bread  or  corn  cakes.  It  is  set 
away  for  winter  consumption.'  The  inner  part  of 
the  i)itahaya  may  also  be  sun-dried,  and  will  then 
keep  for  a  long  time.  Sahuaro  seeds  are  quite  oily, 
and  I  am  told  by  Mr.  E.  H.  Davis  that  the  Papagos 
dry  them  and  grind  them  into  an  oleaginous  paste, 
which  they  spread  like  butter  on  their  tortillas.  The 
ribs  of  this  most  useful  plant  are  also  employed  by 
these  same  Lidians  as  the  basis  of  their  stick-and- 
mud  houses — a  practice  doubtless  inherited  from  the 
ancients,  as  in  many  old  cliff  dwellings  sahuaro  ribs 
are  found  reinforcing  adobe. 

A  word  about  one  more  desert  fruit,  and  this 
chapter  closes.  On  the  Colorado  Desert  of  South- 
eastern California,  there  is  indigenous  a  stately  palm 
knowm  as  the  California  Fan  Palm  {Washingtonia 
filifera,  Wendl.,  var.  rohusta),  which  has  been  widely 
introduced  into  cultivation  in  the  Southwest.  In  the 
canons  of  the  San  Jacinto  Mountains  opening  to  the 
desert  and  in  the  desert  foothills  of  the  San  Bernar- 
dino ^lountains,  as  w^ell  as  here  and  there  in  certain 
alkaline  oases  of  the  desert  itself,  extensive  groves 
of    this    noble    palm    flourish — the    remnant,    it    is 

T  For  an  interesting  and  detailed  account  of  the  Arizona  Sahuaro 
harvest  and  uses,  see  Mr.  Carl  Lumholtz's  "New  Trails  in  Mexico." 

112 


ti: 


':i    o 


^   u 
I     o 


Z     r^    ^ 


'-f.    '— 

'o 


.2 

O  O 

.5  ^ 

15  i^    t/i 


a 


a 


P       -        "" 

^  'f  ii 


LITTLE  REGARDED  WILD  FRUITS 

believed,  of  far  greater  forests  tliat  x)rol)a])ly  existed 
in  that  region  in  primeval  times.  The  mature  fruit 
of  the  Washingtonia  is  l)erry-like  and  black,  resem- 
bling a  small  grape  or  cherry,  and  is  borne  in  huge 
compound  clusters,  which  hang  below  the  leafy 
crown  of  the  tree  in  autumn  and  early  winter.  The 
relatively  large  seed  is  embedded  in  a  thin  pulp  of 
sweetish  flavor,  which  is  edible,  though  it  requires 
industry  and  a  long  pole  to  reach  the  fruit.  These 
requisites  were  possessed  by  the  old-time  desert 
Lidians,  who  used  to  make  of  the  palm-berries  an 
important  feature  in  their  diet,  not  only  consuming 
the  pulp  both  fresh  and  dried,  but  also  grinding  the 
seeds  into  a  meal,  which  Dr.  Edward  Palmer  thouglit 
as  good  as  cocoanut. 


113 


CHAPTER  VI 

WILD  PLANTS  WITH  EDIBLE  STEMS  AND 

LEAVES 

I  often  gathered  wholesome  herbs,  which  I  boiled,  or  eat  as 
salads  with  my  bread. 

Gulliver's  Travels, 

WHAT  would  you  say  to  a  dish  of  ferns  on 
toast?  It  is  quite  feasible  in  the  spring,  if 
the  Common  Bracken  (Pteris  aquilina,  L.)  grows 
in  your  neighborhood — that  coarse,  weedy-look- 
ing fern  with  long,  cord-like  creeping  root-stocks 
and  great,  triangular  fronds  topping  stalks  one  to 
two  feet  high  or  more,  frequent  in  dry,  open  woods 
and  in  old  fields  throughout  the  United  States — the 
most  abundant  of  ferns.  The  part  to  be  used  for 
this  purpose  is  the  upper  portion  of  the  young  shoot, 
cut  at  the  period  when  the  fern  shoot  has  recently 
])ut  up  and  is  beginning  to  uncurl.  The  lower  part 
of  the  shoot,  which  is  woody,  and  the  leafy  tip,  which 
is  unpleasantly  hairy,  are  rejected.  It  is  the  inter- 
mediate portion  that  is  chosen,  and  though  this  is 

114 


EDIBLE  STEMS  AND  LEAVES 


loosely  invested  with  hairs,  these  are  easily  brushed 
off.  Then  the  cuttin.ij:,  which  resembles  an  at- 
tenuated asparagus  stalk,  is  ready  for  the  pot. 
Divided  into  short  lengths  and  cooked  in  salted,  boil- 
ing water  until  quite 
tender — a  process  that 
usually  requires  a  half 
to  three  quarters  of  an 
hour — the  fern  may  be 
served  like  asparagus, 
as  a  straight  vegeta- 
ble, or  on  toast  with 
drawn  butter,  or  as  a 
salad  with  French 
dressing.  The  cooked 
fern  has  a  taste  quite 
its  own,  with  a  sugges- 
tion of  almond.  Its 
food  value,  according 
to  some  experiments 
made  a  few  years  ago  by  the  Washington  State  Uni- 
versity, is  reckoned  as  about  that  of  cabbage,  and 
rather  more  than  either  asparagus  or  tomatoes. 
Furthermore,  the  rootstocks  of  this  fern  are  edible, 
according  to  Indian  standards,  and  are  doubtless  of 
some  nutritive  worth  as  they  arc  starchy,  l)ut  the 

115 


Brackkn  Shoots 
(Pteris  aquilina) 


USEFUL  WILD  PLANTS 

flavor  does  not  readily  commend  itself  to  cultivated 
I^alates. 

Dietitians  who  insist  on  the  value  of  salads  as  part 
of  a  riulillv  balanced  ration  have  a  stron^2^  backer  in 
Mother  Nature,  if  we  may  take  as  a  hint  the  large 
nunilier  of  wild  plants  which  everywhere  freely 
offer  themselves  to  us  as  ^'greens'' — all  wholesomely 
edible  and  many  of  decided  palatability.  Especially 
in  the  spring,  when  the  human  system  is  starving 
for  green  things  and  succulent,  the  earth  teems  with 
these  tender  wilding  shoots  that  our  ancestors  set 
more  or  less  store  b}^  but  which  in  these  days  of 
cheap  and  abundant  garden  lettuce  and  spinach  we 
leave  to  the  rabbits.  To  know  such  plants  in  the 
first  stages  of  their  growth,  wdien  neither  flower  nor 
fruitage  is  present  to  assist  in  identification — the 
stage  at  which  most  of  them  must  be  picked  to  serve 
as  salads  or  pot  herbs — presupposes  an  all-round 
acquaintance  with  them,  so  that  the  collector  must 
needs  be  a  bit  of  an  exjDert  in  his  line,  or  have  a 
friend  who  is. 

There  is  one,  however,  that  is  familiar  to  every- 
body— the  ubi(iuitous  Dandelion,  whose  young  plants 
are  utilized  as  pot-herbs  particularly  by  immigrants 
from  over  sea  as  yet  too  little  Americanized  to  have 
lost  their  thrifty  Old  World  ways.     It  is  a  pleasant 

116 


EDIBLE  STEMS  AND  LEAVES 

sight  of  spring  days  to  see  these  new-fledged  Ameri- 
cans dotting  tlie  fields  and  waste  lots  near  our  big 
cities,  armed  with  knives,  snipping  and  transferring 
to  sack  or  basket  the  tender  new  leaves  of  the  well- 
beloved  plant,  which,  like  themselves,  is  a  translated 
European.  The  leaves  are  best  when  boiled  in  two 
waters  to  remove  the  bitterness  resident  in  them; 
and  then,  served  like  spinach  or  beet-tops,  they  are 
good  enough  for  any  table.  Old  Peter  Kalm,  who 
has  ever  an  eye  watchful  for  the  uses  to  which  people 
put  the  wild  plants,  tells  us  the  French  Canadians 
in  his  day  did  not  use  the  leaves  of  the  Dandelion, 
but  the  roots,  digging  these  in  the  spring,  cutting 
them  and  preparing  them  as  a  bitter  salad. 

Then  there  is  Chicory,  Avhich  has  run  wild  in 
settled  parts  of  the  eastern  United  States  and  to 
some  extent  on  the  Pacific  coast,  adorning  the  road- 
sides in  summer  with  its  charming  blue  flowers  of 
half  a  day.  Its  young  leaves,  if  prepared  in  the 
same  way  as  those  of  the  Dandelion,  are  relished 
by  some.  Preferably,  though,  the  leaves  are 
blanched  and  eaten  raw  as  a  salad.  The  blanching 
may  be  done  in  several  ways.  The  outer  leaves  may 
be  drawTi  up  and  tied  so  as  to  protect  the  inner  foliage 
from  the  light  and  thus  whiten  it,  or  flower-pots  may 
be  capped  over  the  plants.     Another  method  is  this: 

117 


USEFUL  WILD  PLANTS 


Chicory 

(Cichorium  IntyhusJ 


Dig  up  the  roots  in  the  aTitumn,  cut  back  the  tops 
to  within  an  inch  of  the  root-crown  and  bury  the 
roots  to  within  an  inch  of  the  top  in  a  bed  of  loose 
mellow  earth  in  a  warm  cellar.     In  a  month  or  tw^o, 

118 


EDIBLE  STEMS  AM)  LEAVES 

new  leaves  should  appear,  crisp  and  white  and  ready 
for  the  salad  bowl. 

Another    old-fashioned    pot-herb    that    may    be 
gathered  freely  in  the  spring  is  the  early  growtli 
of  that  familiar  weed  of  gardens  and  waste  places 
throughout  the  land,  the  homely  Pigweed   (CJioio- 
imdium    album,    L.),    or    Lamb's    quarters.     This 
latter  queer  name,  by  the  way,  like  the  plant  itself, 
is  a  waif  from  England,  and  according  to  Prior  ^  is 
a    corruption    of    *^ Lammas    quarter,''    an    ancient 
festival  in  the  English  calendar  with  which  a  kindred 
plant  {Atriplcx  patida),  of  identical  popular  name 
and  usage,  had  some  association.     Of  equal  or  per- 
haps greater  vogue  are  the  young  spring  shoots  of 
the  Pokeweed   {Pliytolacca  decandra,  L.)  boiled  in 
two  waters  (and  in  the  second  with  a  bit  of  fat  pork) 
and  served  with  a  dash  of  vinegar.     So,  too,   the 
tirst,  tender  sprouts  of  the  common  eastern  ^I ilk- 
weed  {Asclepias  Syriaca,  L.)  have  garnished  country 
tables  in  the  spring  as  a  cooked  vegetable,  but  the 
older  stems  are  too  acrid  and  milky  for  use.     Mr. 
J.  M.  Bates,  writing  in  ''The  American  Botanist," 
speaks  of  this  and  of  the  closely  related  species,  A. 
speciosa,  Torr.,  of  the  region  west  of  the  ^Fississippi, 
as  the  best  of  all  wild  greens,  providod   tln^y  are 

1  "On  the  Popular  Names  of  British  Plants,"  R.  C.  A.  Prior,  M.  D. 

119 


Milkweed 
(Asclepias  ^yriacaj 


120 


EDIBLE  STEMS  AND  LEAVES 

picked  while  young  enough,  that  is,  like  asparagus 
sprouts  and  while  the  stems  will  still  snap  when 
bent.  Young  leaves  and  all  are  good  in  that  stage 
of  growth. 

The  Buckwheat  faniilv,  which  has  yielded  to  civili- 
zation  not  only  the  grain  that  bears  the  family  name 
but  also  the  succulent  vegetable  Khubarb,  has  some 
wild  members  with  modest  pretensions  to  useful- 
ness. That  common  weed,  naturalized  from  Europe, 
the  Curled  Dock  {Riimex  crispus,  L.),  for  instance, 
is  of  this  tribe ;  and  its  spring  suit  of  radical  leaves 
stands  well  with  bucolic  connoisseurs  in  greens.  An- 
other Eumex  {R.  liymenosepalus,  Torr.),  common  on 
the  dry  plains  and  deserts  of  the  Southwest  and  be- 
coming very  showy  when  its  ample  panicles  of  dull 
crimson  flowers  and  seed-vessels  are  set,  is  famous 
there  as  a  satisfactory  substitute  for  rhubarb,  which, 
indeed,  the  plant  somewhat  resembles.  The  large 
leaves,  nearly  a  foot  long,  are  narrowed  to  a  thick, 
fleshy  footstalk,  which  is  crisp,  juicy  and  tart. 
These  stalks,  stripped  off  before  the  toughness  of 
age  has  come  upon  them,  and  cooked  like  rhubarb, 
are  hardly  distinguishable  from  it.  AVesterners 
know  it  as  Wild  Rhubarb,  Wild  Pie  Plant,  and 
Canaigre.  Under  the  last  name  it  has  some  celebrity 
as  tanning  material,  the  tuberous  roots  being  rich 

121 


Wild  Rhubarb 
(Rumex  hynienosepalus) 


122 


EDIBLE  STEMS  AND  LEAVES 

in  tannin  and  having  be4?n  long  used  by  the  Indians 
in  treating  skins.  The  tannin  is  extracted  by  leach- 
ing the  dried  and  ground  roots. 

To  the  same  family  belongs  the  vast  western  genus 
Eriogonum,  which  includes  that  famous  honey  plant 
of  tire  Pacific  coast  known  as  Wild  Buckwheat. 
Some  members  of  this  genus  are  prized  by  the 
Indians  and  children  for  the  refreshing  aciditv  of 
the  young  stems — a  quality  of  distinct  value  in  the 
arid  regions  where  many  of  them  grow  and  where 
one  is  ''a  long  way  from  a  lemon."  Among  such 
is  Eriogonum  infatum,  T.  &  F.,  the  so-called 
*^ Desert  Trumpet"  or  "Pickles,"  found  abundantly 
on  the  southwestern  desert  as  far  north  as  Utah  and 
eas-tward  to  New  Mexico.  It  is  remarkable  for  its 
bluish-green,  leafless  stalks,  hollow  and  puffed  out 
like  a  trumpet,  sometimes  to  the  diameter  of  an  inch 
or  so,  and  rising  out  of  a  radical  cluster  of  small 
heart-shaped  leaves.  The  stems  before  flowering 
are  tender  and  are  eaten  raw. 

The  peppery,  anti-scorbutic  juices  of  the  Mu-stard 
family  supply  a  valuable  element  in  the  human 
dietary  everywhere ;  and  besides  the  important  vege- 
tables and  condiments  that  represent  it  in  our 
gardens — such  as  cabbage,  turnips,  radishes,  horse- 
radish, etc. — there  are  several  species  growing  wild 

123 


USEFUL  WILD  PLANTS 

that  have  been  proved  of  worth.  Water-cress, 
known  to  everybody  {Nasturtium  officinale,  K.  Br.) 
and  originally  introduced,  at  least  in  the  East,  from 
Europe,  is  now  a  common  aquatic  throughout  a  large 
I)art  of  the  United  States  and  Canada.  The  waters 
of  springs  and  brooks  are  often  found  thickly 
blanketed  with  green  coverlets  of  this  plant  dotted 
with  the  tiny  white  flowers,  and  lending  spice  to  the 
wayfarer's  luncheon.  Winter  Cress,  Yellow  Rocket, 
or  Barbara's  Cress  {Barharea  vulgaris,  R.  Br.)  used 
to  be  very  generally  eaten  by  people  of  humble 
gastronomic  aspirations,  so  that  it  has  acquired  the 
additional  name  of  Poor  Man's  Cabbage,  being  pre- 
I)ared  either  as  a  pot-herb  or  as  a  salad.  It  is 
abundant  by  roadsides  and  in  low-lying  fi'elds  quite 
across  the  continent,  and,  in  fact,  almost  around  the 
world,  and  was  no  doubt  cultivated  in  our  colonial 
gardens.  Even  in  winter,  when  the  snow  melts 
enough  to  show  bare  patches  of  earth,  the  tufted, 
thickish  leaves  of  this  sturdy  mustard  are  frequently 
revealed,  green  and  alive,  hugging  the  ground.  The 
lower  leaves  are  of  the  shape  that  botanists  call 
lyrate — that  is,  long  and  deeply  lobed,  with  one  to 
four  pairs  of  segments  and  a  terminal  one  large  and 
roundish.  In  early  spring  it  sends  up  a  spike  of 
showy,  yellow,  four-petaled  flowers.     Quite  similar 

124 


Winter  Cress 
(Barbarca   vulgaris) 


125 


USEFUL  WILD  PLANTS 

to  this,  and  bv  some  botanists  considered  onlv  a 
variety  of  it,  is  the  Scurvy  Grass  (Barbarea  praecox, 
li.  i)r.),  with  leaf  divisions  more  numerous  than 
those  of  the  Winter  Cress.  It,  also,  is  used  as  a 
winter  salad.  It  must  have  been  very  grateful  to 
systems  suffering  from  the  unvaried  ration  of  salt 
meat  that  too  often  distinguished  the  winter  tables 
of  our  rural  ancestors. 

In  the  same  class  are  two  large  cruciferous  plants 
of  the  arid  regions  of  the  Far  West,  that  go  by  the 
name  of  Wild  Cabbage  among  the  whites  who  know 
them.  Their  tender  stems  and  leaves  have  a  cab- 
bage-like taste  and  have  at  times  gone  into  the 
pioneer's  cooking  pots.  One  is  Stanley  a  pinnatifiday 
Nutt.,  found  in  dry,  even  desert  soil,  from  South 
Dakota  to  New  Mexico  and  w^estward  to  California, 
a  stout,  smooth  perennial,  two  to  four  feet  tall,  with 
low^er  leaves  divided  into  slender  segments  and  with 
long  racemes  of  yellow,  four-petaled  flowers,  suc- 
ceeded by  slender  seed-vessels  downwardly  curved 
on  long  foot-stalks.  The  other  is  Caulanthus  crassi- 
caulis  (Torr.),  Wats.,  found  on  dry  foothills  of  the 
interior  basin  from  the  Sierra  Nevada  to  Utah.  It, 
too,  is  a  stout,  smooth  perennial,  two  to  three  feet 
high,  but  with  hollow,  inflated  stems,  leaves  mostly 
radical  and  in  shape  somewhat  like  a  dandelion's, 

126 


EDIBLE  STEMS  AND  LKA\  ES 

and  dark-purple  flowers  each  with  four  crisped,  wavy 
petals  little  larger  than  the  woolly  calyx.  The  youn.c: 
plants,  while  still  tender,  are  edihle  hut  need  to  he 
cooked.  The  process  pursued  hy  the  Pananiint 
Indians  is  thus  described  by  Coville :  ''The  leaves 
and  young  stems  are  gathered  and  thrown  into  boil- 
ing water  for  a  few  minutes,  then  taken  out,  washed 
in  cold  water,  and  squeezed.  The  operation  of 
washing  is  repeated  five  or  six  times,  and  the  leaves 
are  finally  dried,  ready  to  be  used  as  boiled  cal)l)age. 
Washing  removes  the  bitter  taste  and  certain  sub- 
stances that  would  be  likely  to  produc-e  nausea  or 
diarrhoea. ' ' 

One  would  suppose  that  the  stinging  Xettle 
(Urtica  dioica.,  L.)  would  be  as  unlikely  a  subject 
as  one  could  readily  find  to  supply  a  morsel  where- 
with to  tickle  the  palate.  Nevertheless,  this  "nat- 
uralized nuisance,"  as  good  old  Doctor  Darling- 
ton of  "Flora  Cestrica"  fame  testily  styles  it,  has 
long  been  valued  as  a  vegetable  in  Europe,  whence 
the  plant  has  come  to  us.  There  the  tender  shoots, 
cut  before  the  flowering  stage,  were  served  in  old 
times  on  the  tables  of  the  well-to-do  as  well  as  of 
the  peasantry.  On  a  day  in  February,  1G()1,  Mr. 
Samuel  Pepys,  of  inmiortal  memory,  ingenuously 
set  down  hi  his  diary  the  fact  that  calling  upon  one 

127 


USEFUL  WILD  PLANTS 

^fr.  Simons  in  London,  he  found  the  gentleman 
abroad,  ''but  she,  like  a  good  lady,  within,  and  there 
we  did  eat  some  nettle  porridge,  which  was  made 
on  purpose  to-day  for  some  of  their  coming,  and  was 
very  good."  Was  it  not  Goldsmith  who  wrote  that 
a  French  cook  of  the  olden  time  could  make  seven 
different  dishes  out  of  a  nettle-top  I 

Along  our  Southwestern  border  from  Texas  to 
California  and  southward  into  Mexico  a  species  of 
Amaranth  grows  (Amarmithus  Pahncri,  Wats.), 
known  to  the  Mexicans  and  Indians  as  quelite  (a 
general  name  among  the  Mexican  population,  I 
believe,  for  greens)  or  more  specifically  as  hledo. 
The  latter  word  is  good  Spanish  for  ''blite,"  an  Old 
AVorld  pot-herb.  Quelite  is  highly  regarded  when 
young  and  tender  as  a  vegetable  for  men,  and,  when 
cut  and  stacked,  as  a  winter  feed  for  cattle.  It  is  a 
stout,  weedy  annual,  two  to  four  feet  high,  the  ovate 
leaves  one  to  four  inches  long  on  footstalks  about 
twice  that  length,  the  greenish  flowers  of  two  sexes 
(on  different  plants)  disposed  in  long,  dense  chaffy 
spikes.  Only  the  young  plants  should  be  gathered ; 
they  should  then  be  boiled  without  delay,  and  the 
result,  in  the  judgment  of  white  people  who  know  it, 
is  a  dish  resembling  asparagus  in  flavor,  and  rather 
superior  to   spinach.     Mexicans   and  Indians  have 

128 


EDIBLE  STEMS  xVNI)  LEAVES 

used  it  extensively.      Other  species  of  Amaranths 
have  been  similarly  turned  to  account. 

This  little  course  in  wild  pot-herbs  may  now  be 
closed  with  mention  of  three  members  of  the  Portu- 
laca  family.  These  plants  are  marked  by  smooth, 
succulent,  thickish  leaves,  and  though  humble  herbs, 
they  are  usually  found,  when  found  at  all,  in  sufficient 
abundance  to  be  very  noticeable.  Most  familiar  is 
the  little  prostrate  plant  common  everywhere  in 
fields  and  w^aste  places,  called  Purslane  {Portidaca 
oleracea,  L.).  It  is  generally  regarded  by  Ameri- 
cans as  a  weed  and  provokes  the  temper  by  its  stub- 
born persistence  in  turning  up  after  it  has  appar- 
ently been  eradicated.  It  has,  however,  held  quite 
a  respectable  social  position  abroad,  where  garden- 
ers have  cultivated  it  and  developed  it  as  a  whole- 
some vegetable  useful  not  only  as  a  pot-herb  but  for 
salads  and  pickles.'  On  the  Pacific  slope  a  cousin  of 
the  Purslane,  known  as  Miner's  or  Indian  Lettuce 
{Montia  perfoliata,  Howell),  is  abundant  in  shady 
places.  It  is  easily  recognized  by  clustered,  h)ng- 
stalked,  fleshy  root-leaves,  rhomboidal  in  outline, 
from  among  which  a  flower  stalk  rises  to  the  height 
of  several  inches.  This  is  terminated  by  a  raceme 
of  tiny  white  flowers  beneath  which  a  pair  of  oppo- 

'Eaten  raw  it  is  a  valuable  anti-scorbutic. 

129 


Miner's  Lettuce 
(Montia  perfoliataj 


130 


EDIBLE  STEMS  AND  LEAVES 

site  leaves  united  at  their  bases  forms  a  cup  or 
saucer  around  the  stem,  a  diagnostic  feature  of  the 
ph\nt.  The  Indians  were  very  fond  of  the  pleasant 
succulence  of  the  stem  and  leaves  and  their  consuni])- 
tion  of  the  herb  led  the  wliite  pioneers  to  try  it. 
It  makes,  indeed,  a  palatable  enough  dish,  either 
raw  with  a  sprinkling  of  salad  dressing  or  boiled 
and  served  like  spinach.  Stephen  Powers  tells  of  a 
certain  tribe  of  California  Indians  who  were  accus- 
tomed to  lay  the  leaves  near  the  nests  of  red  ants, 
which  running  over  the  greens  would  flavor  them 
with  a  formic  acidity  that  served  in  lieu  of  vinegar !  ^ 
The  value  of  this  little  wilding  is  attested  by  its  intro- 
duction into  English  kitchen  gardens,  where,  under 
the  name  of  Winter  Purslane,  it  is  esteemed  as  a 
pot-herb  and  a  salad  plant. 

Also  of  California  is  another  of  the  Portulaca  kin- 
ship, the  pretty  wild  flower  known  as  Red  Maids  or 
Kisses  {Calandrinia  caulescens  Menziesii,  Gray), 
whose  crimson  blossoms  expanding  in  the  sunshine 
make  sheets  of  vivid  color  over  considerable  areas 
in  the  spring.  The  plant  is  an  annual  with  juicy 
stem  and  leaves,  and  may  be  used  like  those  others 
of  its  family  just  mentioned  as  a  garnish  to  a  meal. 

If,  as  we  have  seen,  the  Nettle  may  ])e  made  to 

3  "Contributions  to  North  American  Ethnology."  vol.  ill.  42."). 

1:31 


USEFUL  WILD  PLANTS 

grace  the  table,  it  is  quite  credible  that  within  the 
spiny  armor  of  the  Cactus  tribe  nutrition  may  be 
1  lid i lit?.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  in  the  Southwest  the 
^lexical!  and  Lidian  population  resort  to  the  Nopal 
(that  is,  the  flat-jointed  sort  of  Opiintia)  not  only 
for  the  tuna  fruit,  as  described  in  a  previous  chapter, 
but  also  for  the  succulent  flesh  of  the  stem,  which 
may  be  made  to  do  duty  as  a  vegetable.  The  Mexi- 
cans call  these  flattened  joints  yencas,  and  gather  the 
young  ones  when  about  half  groAvn  and  before  the 
si)ines  have  hardened.  Cut  into  narrow  strips, 
boiled  until  tender  and  served  with  a  tasty  dressing 
or  just  salt  and  pepper,  they  are  about  in  the  class 
of  string  beans,  particularly  grateful  to  desert  dwell- 
ers whose  craving  for  green  food  it  is  not  always 
easy  to  satisfy.  There  is  a  bluish-green,  procumbent 
cactus  without  spines  {Opuntia  hasilaris,  Engelm.) 
common  in  the  southwestern  deserts,  that  has  been 
in  particular  favor  with  the  Indians,  and  the  Pana- 
mint  method  of  preparing  it,  as  recorded  by  Mr. 
Coville,^  may  be  stated  here :  In  May  or  early  June 
the  fleshy  joints  of  the  season's  growth,  as  well  as 
the  buds,  blossoms  and  immature  fruit,  are  distended 
with  sweet  sap.  The  joints  are  then  broken  off  and 
collected,  carefully  rubbed  with  grass  to  remove  the 

■*  The  American  Anthropologist,  October,  1892. 

132 


EDIBLE  STEMS  AND  LEAVES 

tiny  bristles,  and  spread  in  the  sun  to  dry.  After 
being  thoroughly  dried,  they  will  keep  indefinitely, 
and  are  boiled  as  required  and  eaten  with  a  season- 
ing of  salt.  An  alternative  process  is  to  steam  the 
joints  for  about  twelve  hours  in  stone-lined  pits  first 
made  hot  by  a  fire  of  brush.  The  cactus,  .thus 
cooked,  may  be  eaten  at  once  or  dried  and  laid  away 
for  future  use.  It  then  has  the  texture  and  appear- 
ance of  unpeeled  dried  peaches. 

From  the  curious,  cylindrical,  keg-like  bodies  of 
another  cactus  of  the  Soutlnvest  {E chin oc act  us  sp.), 
termed  hisnaga  by  the  Mexicans,  or  Barrel  Cactus 
by  polite  Americans  (others  sometimes  style  it 
Nigger-head),  a  sort  of  conserve  used  to  be  made  by 
the  Papago  Indians  of  Arizona — the  prototype  of 
the  so-called  *' Cactus  Candy"  of  city  shops.  The 
process,  as  described  by  Dr.  Edward  Palmer,  w^as 
to  pare  away  the  thorny  rind  of  a  large  specimen 
and  let  it  remain  several  davs  ^^to  bleed."  Then  the 
pulp  was  cut  up  into  pieces  of  suitable  size  and  boiled 
in  the  syrup  of  the  Sahuaro  pifahayas,  obtained  as 
described  in  the  preceding  chapter.  Another  and 
more  important  use  of  this  cactus  will  be  described 
later. 

Few  plants  of  the  Southwestern  desert  region  are 
more  interesting  and  useful  than  the  .Vgave,  a  genus 

133 


USEFUL  WILD  PLANTS 

of  the  Amaryllis  family.  Its  general  aspects  are 
made  familiar  through  the  well-known  Century 
Plant  of  cultivation.  There  are  a  dozen  species  or 
more  indigenous  within  the  limits  of  the  United 
States,  ranging  mostly  along  the  Mexican  border 
fi'om  Texas  to  California.  For  years — ten  to 
twenty,  it  may  be — the  plant  devotes  itself  exclu- 
sively to  developing  a  rosette  of  slender,  pulpy, 
dagger-pointed  leaves,  stiff  and  fibrous.  Then  some 
spring  day,  within  the  center  of  this  savage  leaf- 
cradle,  a  conical  bud  is  born  and  develops  quickly, 
a  foot  a  day  it  may  be,  into  a  huge,  asparagus-like 
stalk,  twelve  or  fifteen  feet  tall,  that  breaks  out  at 
the  summit  into  clusters  of  yellow  blossoms.  This 
long  delayed  consummation  costs  the  plant  its  life, 
and  with  the  maturing  of  its  seeds  it  turns  brown 
and  withers  away.  It  is  from  a  Mexican  species  of 
Agave  that  the  Mexicans  manufacture  their  desolat- 
ing drinks  pulque  and  mescal.  The  United  States 
species,  however,  have  been  little  turned  to  such 
account,  but  as  a  nutritive  food  source  they  have 
from  very  ancient  times  been  important  to  the 
Indians.  This  food  shares  with  the  fiery  Mexican 
drink  the  name  mescal.  Even  at  the  present  day, 
when  the  ease  of  extracting  a  meal  from  a  tin  can 
has  been  the  cause  of  relegating  many  an  honest 

134 


EDIBLE  STEMS  AND  LEAVES 

old-time  cookery  to  oblivion,  there  are  Indians  who 
pack  up  every  spring  and  repair  to  the  mescal  fields, 
there  to  ojDcn  again  the  ancient  1)aking  j)its  wliich 
their  fathers  and  their  fathers  before  them  liad  used, 
and  camp  for  a  week  at  a  time,  cutting  and  cooking, 
feasting  and  singing,  and  telling  once  more  the  im- 
memorial legends  of  their  race. 

The  process  of  preparing  mescal  as  I  happen  to 
have  observed  it  in  California  is  this:  The  succu- 
lent, budding  flower-stalks  when  just  emerging  from 
amid  the  leaves  are  cut  out  with  an  axe,  or  better  yet 
with  a  native  implement  fashioned  for  the  purpose — 
a  long,  stout  lever  of  hard  wood  (oak  or  mountain 
mahogany)  beveled  at  one  end  like  a  chisel.  They 
are  then  trimmed  of  their  tips  and  all  adhering  leaf- 
age, the  desirable  portion  being  the  butt,  which  is 
filled  with  all  the  pent-up  energy  that  the  plant  was 
holding  in  reserve  for  tlie  supreme  act  of  flower  and 
seed  production.  Meantime,  a  circular  pit,  al)out  a 
foot  and  a  half  deep  and  five  or  six  feet  in  diameter, 
has  been  prepared — usually  one  that  has  been  used 
in  previous  years  being  dug  out.  This  is  lined  side 
and  bottom  with  flat  stones,  and  a  huge  fire  of  dry 
brush  started  in  it,  care  being  taken  to  use  no  wood 
that  is  bitter.  When  the  fire  has  l)urned  down,  the 
mescal  butts  are  placed  in  the  hot  ashes,  covered 

135 


USEFUL  WILD  PLANTS 

over  with  more  hot  ashes  and  heated  stones  from  the 
sides  of  the  pit,  and  all  is  then  buried  beneath  a 
mound  of  earth.  There  the  mescal  is  left  to  steam 
until  some  time  the  next  day,  like  the  four-and- 
twenty  blackbirds  of  the  nursery  rhyme  in  their 
pie.  When  the  pit  is  opened  the  mescal,  still  hot  and 
now  charred  on  the  outside,  is  dra\\m  out,  the  burnt 
exterior  pared  off,  and  the  brown,  sticky  inside  laid 
bare,  to  be  eaten  on  the  spot  or  laid  away  to  cool  and 
be  transported  home  for  future  use.  If  the  buds 
have  been  cut  young  enough,  mescal  is  tender  and 
sweet,  the  flavor  suggesting  a  cross  between  pine- 
apple and  banana  and  pleasant  to  most  white 
palates.  Indians  are  extravagantly  fond  of  it,  and 
it  is  rare  indeed  that  the  stock  carried  home  lasts 
over  the  following  summer.  Should  the  buds  be  too 
old  when  cooked,  the  result  is  unpleasantly  fibrous, 
though  in  such  cases  one  need  only  chew  until  the 
edible  part  is  consumed,  when  the  fibre  may  be  spat 
out.  Mr.  Coville,  in  his  account  of  the  Panamints 
above  quoted,  speaks  of  finding  at  some  forsaken 
Indian  camps  along  the  Colorado  Kiver,  dried  and 
weathered  wads  of  chewed  mescal  fibre — visible  re- 
minders of  forgotten  feasts. 

Denizens  of  the  same  region  with  the  Agaves,  and 

136 


:0 


ri 


'J 
r. 


biD 


o 


y. 


O 


EDIBLE  STEMS  AND  LEAVES 

somewhat  resembling  them,  are  several  species  of 
Dasylirion,  but  the  leaves,  which  form  a  crown  upon 
a  central  stem,  are  much  narrower  and  the  small 
flowers  are  white  and  constructed  on  the  plan  of  the 
lily.     They  are  called,  in  popular  parlance,  Bear- 
grass,  from  Bruin's  fondness  for  the  tender  stalks, 
or  more   generally  by  their   Mexican  name,  Sotol. 
The  budding  flower-stalks  are  to  some  extent  used 
like  mescal — roasted" and  eaten.     So,  too,  the  ])eauti- 
ful    Yucca    Whipplei,    Torr.,    abundant    throughout 
Southern  California  and  adjacent  regions,  has  been 
made  to  add  variety  to  the  aboriginal  menu.     The 
splendid  flower  masses  of  this  plant,  several  feet  in 
length  and   rising  in   pure  white   spires   out   of   a 
bristling    clump     of     slender,     rigid,     spine-tipped 
leaves,  are  a  famous  sight  in  parts  of  the  Southwest. 
Americans  call  this  Yucca  ''Spanish  Bayonet,"  or 
sometimes  more  poetically  ''The  Lord's   Candle." 
To  Mexicans  it  is  quiote,  one  of  the  many  Aztec 
terms    that    survive   with    little    mutilation    in    the 
Spanish  dialect  of  the  Southwest.     The  flower-stalk, 
when  full  grown  but  before  the  buds  expand,  is  filled 
with  sap  and  is  edible,  cut  into  sections  and  either 
boiled   or   roasted   in   the   ashes.     The   tough   rind 
should  first  be  peeled   off.     The  flower  buds,  too, 

137 


USEFUL  WILD  PLANTS 

make  a  palatable  vegetable,  if  boiled,  and  serve  as 
a  succulent  side-dish  to  the  camper's  usually 
monotonous  drv  diet. 

On   the   Southeastern   rim   of   our   countrv   from 

ft-' 

North  Carolina  to  Florida,  a  common  tree  is  the  Cab- 
bage Palmetto  (Sahal  Palmetto,  R.  &  S.),  which 
South  Carolina  has  adopted  as  so  peculiarly  her 
own  that  she  is  known  as  the  Palmetto  State.  It  is 
a  palm  of  much  the  general  look  of  the  California 
Fan  Palm,  though  it  never  attains  so  great  a  height 
as  the  latter  often  does.  All  palms  grow  by  the  de- 
velopment of  a  central,  terminal  leaf-bud,  and  this  in 
some  species — the  Palmetto  is  one — is  turned  to  ac- 
count as  an  edible,  being  popularly  known  as  a 
"cabbage."  When  cooked,  the  Palmetto  cabbage  is 
a  tender,  succulent  vegetable,  though  the  harvest- 
ing of  the  buds  is  a  wasteful  practice,  unless  it  is 
desired  to  clear  the  land,  as  cutting  them  out  kills 
the  trees. 

We  have  it  on  the  authority  of  Holy  Writ  that 
Nebuchadnezzar,  king  of  Babylon,  foregathered  for 
a  season  with  the  beasts  of  the  field  and  ate  grass 
as  oxen,  finding  it,  it  is  to  be  assumed,  a  sustain- 
ing ration.  The  Lidians  of  California,  curiously 
enough,  long  ago  acquired  and  maintained  more  per- 
sistently than  the  royal  Babylonian  a  similar  habit 

138 


EDIBLE  STEMS  AND  LEAVES 

of  turning  tliomselves  out  to  pasture,  to  feast  upon 
llie  patches  of  wild  clover.  This  they  ate  raw  and 
with  greedy  avidit}',  before  the  flowering  stage,  while 
the  plants  were  still  young  and  tender.  In  fact, 
clover  was  another  of  tlie  aboriginal  food  plants 
esteemed  as  so  important  as  to  be  lionored  with 
especial  dance  ceremonies.  Chesnut  speaks  of  see- 
ing groups  of  Indians  in  Mendocino  Count}^,  Cali- 
fornia, wallowing  in  the  ^\ild  clover,  plucking  the 
herbage  and  eating  it  by  the  handful.  Its  nutritive 
content  is  unquestioned,  if  only  one  have  the  diges- 
tive organs  to  handle  it,  chemical  analysis  of  the 
leaves  showing  the  presence  of  food  elements  in 
good  degree.  Intemperate  indulgence,  however,  is 
liable  to  cause  bloat  and  severe  indigestion.  The 
Indians,  to  obviate  this,  learned  that  dipping  the 
leaves  in  salted  water,  or  munching  with  them  the 
parched  kernels  of  the  Pepper-nut  (the  fruit  of  the 
California  Laurel,  Umhellularia  Calif  ornica)  is 
efficacious.^  Not  all  species  of  clover  are  considered 
equally  good.  The  favorite,  still  to  quote  Chesnut, 
is  the  so-called  "sweet  clover"  {TrifoJium  viresceus, 
Greene),  distinguished  by  stout,  succulent  stems, 
ovate  leaflets,  large,  inflated  yellow  and  pink  flowers, 

^j  v.  K.  Chesnut,   "Plants  Used  by   the   Indians  of   Mondooino  Co., 
California." 

139 


USEFUL  WILD  PLANTS 

and  a  noticeable  sweetness  of  taste.  Of  this  species 
even  the  flowers  are  eaten.  Next  to  this  in  flavor 
is  the  ''sour"  or  "salt  clover"  {T.  ohtusiflorum, 
Hook.),  with  narrow,  saw-toothed  leaflets,  whitish 
blossoms  with  purple  centers,  and  a  clammy,  acid- 
ulous exudation  -that  covers  the  leaves  and  flowers. 
I  had  thought  to  close  this  chapter  here,  when  a 
correspondent  who  is  a  veteran  camper.  Dr.  Robert 
T.  Morris,  of  New  York,  reminds  me  of  certain  other 
plants  which  he  has  found  so  useful  that  I  add  them. 
The  Spotted  Touch-me-not  or  Jewel-weed  {Irnpa- 
tiens  fulva,  Nutt.)  he  has  depended  upon  for  weeks 
at  a  time  in  the  northeastern  wilderness,  where, 
under  the  name  of  Lamb's-quarters,  it  is  commonly 
regarded  as  an  important  vegetable  food.  It  luxu- 
riates beside  shady  rills,  and  its  orange-colored 
spotted  flowers,  followed  by  fat  pods  that  burst  at 
a  touch,  are  familiar  to  all.  Excellent,  too,  in  early 
spring,  are  the  latent  buds  of  the  Cinnamon  and 
Interrupted  Ferns  {Osmmidas),  rivals  of  the  chest- 
nut in  flavor  and  size.  Then  those  leathery  lichens 
common  on  rocks  and  known  as  Rock -tripe  {Umhili- 
caria),  so  often  included  in  the  menus  of  old-time 
hunters  and  voyageurs,  have  value.  "They  make," 
to  quote  Dr.  Morris,  "an  excellent  pottage,  although 
the  addition  of  a  little  bacon  or  deer  meat  or  wild 
onion  improves  the  flavor  very  mucli." 

140 


CHAPTER  VII 
BEVERAGE  PLANTS  OF  FIELD  AND  WOOD 

And  sip  with  nymphs  their  elemental  tea. 

Pope. 

MAN  dearly  loves  a  sup  of  drink  with  his  meat, 
and  when  our  pioneer  ancestors  in  the  Ameri- 
can wilderness  ran  short  of  tea  and  coffee  and  craved 
a  change  from  cold  water,  they  found  material  for 
m*ore  or  less  acceptable  substitutes  in  numerous  wild 
plants.  Particularly  during  the  American  Revolu- 
tion was  interest  awakened  in  these,  and  several 
popular  i3lant-names  still  current  date  from  those 
days  of  privation.  Again  during  our  Civil  War  the 
attention  of  residents  in  the  South  was  similarlv 
drawn  to  the  wild  offerings  of  nature.  A  literary 
curiosity,  now  rare,  of  those  dark  days  may  still  be 
turned  up  in  libraries,  a  book  entitled  ''Resources 
of  Southern  Fields  and  Forests  .  .  .  with  practical 
information  on  the  useful  properties  of  the  Trees, 
Plants  and  Shrubs,"  by  Francis  Peyre  Porcher, 
Charleston,  S.  C,  1863,  the  writer  being  then  a 
surgeon  in  the  Confederate  Army. 

141 


USEFUL  WILD  TLANTS 

Among  such  beverage  plants  one  of  the  best  known 
is  a  little  shrub,  two  or  three  feet  high,  frequent  in 
drv  woodlands  and  thickets  of  the  eastern  half  of  the 
continent  from  Canada  to  Texas  and  Florida,  com- 
monly called  New  Jersey  Tea,  the  Cemiothus  Ameri- 
canus,  L.,  of  the  botanists.  It  is  characterized  by 
pointed,  ovate,  toothed  leaves,  two  or  three  inches 
long,  strongly  3-nerved,  and  by  a  large,  dark  red 
root,  astringent  and  capable  of  yielding  a  red  dye. 
This  last  feature  has  given  rise  to.  another  name  for 
the  plant  in  some  localities — Red  Root.  In  late 
spring  and  early  summer  the  bushes  are  noticeable 
from  the  presence  of  abundant,  feathery  clusters  of 
tiny,  white,  long-clawed  flow^ers  which,  if  examined 
closelv,  are  seen  to  resemble  minute  hoods  or  bonnets 
extended  at  arm's  length.  The  leaves  contain  a 
small  proportion  of  a  bitter  alkaloid  called  ceano- 
thine,  and  were  long  ago  found  to  make  a  passable 
substitute  for  Chinese  tea.  During  the  Revolutionary 
War  an  infusion  of  the  dried  leaves  as  a  beverage 
was  in  common  use,  both  because  of  the  odium  at- 
tached to  real  tea  after  the  taxation  troubles  with 
England,  and  from  motives  of  necessity.  Connois- 
seurs claim  that  the  leaves  should  be  dried  in  the 
shade.  There  are  a  score  or  more  of  species  of 
Ceanotlius  indigenous  to   the  Pacific   coast,  w^iere 

H2 


."-•?;':, 
f^^^- 


New  Jersey  Tea 
(Ceano t hus  A mcrica n us) 


143 


USEFUL  WILD  PLANTS 

they  arc  known  as  ^' myrtle'^  or  ^Svild  lilac^^;  but  I 
have  not  heard  of  their  leaves  being  used  like  those 
of  the  eastern  species  mentioned.  These  plants 
will  be  referred  to  again  in  the  chapter  on  Vege- 
table Soaps. 

Another  of  the  Revolutionarv  War  substitutes  was 
the  foliage  of  the  so-called  Labrador  Tea  {Ledum 
Grooilaudiciim,  Oeder),  a  low  evergreen  shrub  of 
cold  bogs  throughout  Canada  and  the  northeastern 
United  States  as  far  south  as  Pennsvlvania.  A  dis- 
tinguishing  feature  is  in  the  narrow,  leathery  leaves 
with  margins  rolled  back  and  a  coating  of  rusty  wool 
on  the  under  side.  When  pinched  the  foliage  ex- 
hales a  slight  fragrance. 

The  familiar  Sassafras  of  rich  woods,  old  fields  and 
fencerows  on  the  Atlantic  side  of  the  country  at- 
tracted attention  very  early  in  colonial  days,  and  all 
sorts  of  virtues  as  a  remedial  agent  were  ascribed 
to  it.  During  the  Civil  War,  Sassafras  tea  became 
a  common  substitute  for  the  Chinese  article,  and  as  a 
spring  drink  for  purifying  the  system  it  still  has 
a  hold  on  the  popular  affection.  The  root  is  the 
part  generally  utilized,  an  infusion  of  the  bark  being 
made  which  is  aromatic  and  stimulant.  The  flowers 
also  may  be  similarlv  treated. 

Of  the  same  family  with  the   Sassafras  and  of 

144 


BEVERAGE  PLxVNTS 

much  the  same  distribution  is  the  common  Spice- 
wood,  Wild  Allspice,  or  Feverbush^  {Lindcra  Ben- 
zoin^ Blume),  a  shrubby  denizen  of  damp  woods  and 
moist  grounds,  easily  recognized  in  early  spring  by 
the  little  bunches  of  honey-yellow  flowers  that  stud 
the  branches  before  the  leaves  appear.  The  whole 
bush  is  spicily  fragrant,  and  a  decoction  of  the  twigs 
makes  another  pleasant  substitute  for  tea,  at  one 
time  particularly  in  vogue  in  the  South.  Dr. 
Porcher  states  that  during  the  Civil  War  soldiers 
from  the  upper  country  in  South  Carolina  serving 
in  the  company  of  which  he  was  surgeon,  came  into 
camp  fully  supplied  ^\dth  Spicewood  for  making  this 
fragrant,  aromatic  beverage.  Andre  Michaux,  a 
French  botanist  who  traveled  afoot  and  horse-back 
through  much  of  the  eastern  United  States  \vhen  it 
was  still  a  wilderness,  half  starving  by  day  and 
sleeping  on  a  deer-skin  at  night,  has  left  in  his  jour- 
nal the  following  record  of  the  virtues  of  Spicewood 
tea,  served  him  at  a  pioneer's  cabin:  ^'I  had 
supped  the  previous  evening  [February  D,  171)(J]  on 
tea  made  from  the  shrub  called  Spicewood.  A 
handful  of  young  twigs  or  branches  is  set  to  boil  and 

1  Also  called  Benjamin-bush,  corrupted  from  ben/.oin,  an  aromatic 
gum  of  the  Orient  which,  however,  is  derived  from  quite  another 
family  of  plants.  French-Canadians  used  to  call  the  Spicewoml. 
poivrier,  w'hich  means  pepper  plant. 

145 


Spicksvood 
(Lindera  Benzoin) 


146 


BEVERAGE  PLANTS 

after  it  has  boiled  at  least  a  quarter  of  an  liour, 
sugar  is  added  and  it  is  drunk  like  tea.  ...  1  was 
told  milk  makes  it  much  more  agreeable  to  the  taste. 
This  beverage  restores  strength,  and  it  had  tliat 
effect,  for  I  was  verv  tired  when  I  arrived."  Tlie 
scarlet  berries  that  cling  like  beads  to  the  branches 
in  the  autumn  used  to  be  dried  and  powdered  for 
use  as  a  household  spice,  whence,  obviously,  the 
name  Wild  Allspice  sometimes  given  to  the  slirul). 

The  warm,  birchy  flavor  of  the  creeping  Winter- 
green  {Gaidtheria  procumhens,  L.,  the  use  of  whose 
berries  was  noted  in  the  previous  chapter)  could 
hardly  have  failed  to  attract  attention  to  the  plant 
as  a  likely  substitute  for  Chinese  tea  when  the  latter 
was  unobtainable;  and  one  of  its  popular  names, 
Teaberry,  indicates  that  that  is  what  happened — an 
infusion  of  the  leaves  being  made.  A  pleasant  and 
wholesome  drink  may  also  be  made  from  the  foliage 
of  one  of  the  Goldenrods — Solidago  odora,  Ait. 
This  is  a  slender,  low-growing  species  with  one- 
sided panicles  of  flowers,  not  uncommon  in  dry  or 
sandv  soil  from  New  Emj:land  to  Texas  a.nd  cHs- 
tinguished  by  an  anise-like  fragrance  given  off  by 
the  minutely  dotted  leaves  when  bruised.  A  com- 
mon name  for  it  is  Mountain  Tea,  and  in  some  parts 
of  the  country  the  gathering  of  the  leaves  to  dry  ainl 

147 


USEFUL  WILD  PLANTS 

peddle  in  the  winter  has  formed  a  minor  rural  in- 
dustry, yielding  a  modest  revenue. 

The  devotees  of  coffee,  too,  have  found  in  the 
wilderness  places  substitutes  for  their  cheering  cup. 
One  of  these  is  the  seed  of  the  Kentucky  Coffee-tre\3" 
{Gymnodadus  Canadensis,  Lam.),  a  picturesque 
forest  tree  with  double-compound  leaves  occurring 
from  Canada  to  Oklahoma.  In  winter  it  is  conspicu- 
ous because  of  the  peculiar  clubby  bluntness  of  the 
bare  branches,  due  to  the  absence  of  small  twigs  and 
branchlets,  which  gives  to  the  whole  tree  a  lifeless 
sort  of  look  that  gained  for  it  among  the  French 
settlers  the  name  Chicot y  a  stump.  In  the  autumn 
the  female  trees  (the  species  is  dioecious)  are  seen 
hanging  with  brown,  sickle-like  pods  six  to  eight 
inches  long  and  an  inch  or  two  wide,  and  containing 
in  the  midst  of  a  sweetish  pulp  several  hard,  flatfish 
seeds.  If  we  are  to  judge  from  the  popular  name 
it  was  probably  the  pioneers  in  Kentucky  that  first 
had  an  inspiration  to  roast  these  seeds  and  grind 
them  for  beverage  purposes.  The  fact  is,  however, 
that  a  century  ago  such  use  of  them  was  quite  preva- 
lent in  what  was  then  the  western  wilderness,  and 
travelers'  diaries  of  the  time  make  frequent  mention 
of  the  practice.     The  journal,  for  instance,  of  Major 

148 


BEVERAGE  PLANTS 

Long's  expedition  to  the  Rocky  Mountains  in  1819-20 
records  that  while  in  winter  camp  on  the  Missouri 
River  near  Council  Bkiffs,  the  party  substituted 
these  seeds  for  coffee  and  found  the  beverage  both 
palatable  and  wholesome.  Thomas  Nuttall,  the 
botanist,  who  botanized  the  following  year  around 
the  mouth  of  the  Ohio  River,  testifies  to  tlie  agree- 
ableness  of  the  parched  seeds  as  an  ai'ticle  of  diet, 
but  thought  that  as  a  substitute  for  coffee  they  were 
'^greatly  inferior  to  cichorium." 

Cichorium  is  the  botanists'  way  of  saying  Chicory, 
the  plant  that  has  been  referred  to  already  as  pro- 
ducing leaves  useful  as  a  salad.  Its  root  has  had  a 
rather  bad  name  as  an  adulterant  of  coffee,  in  which 
delusive  form  it  has  perhaps  entered  more  human 
stomachs  than  the  human  mind  is  aware  of.  As  a 
drink  in  itself,  sailing  under  its  own  colors.  Chicory 
is  not  a  bad  drink,  the  root  being  first  roasted  and 
ground.  It  is  rather  surprising,  by  the  way,  to 
learn  that  a  palatable  beverage  is  possible  from 
steeping  the  needles  .of  the  Hemlock  tree  {Tsuga 
Canadensis,  Carr.) — which  is  not  to  be  confused  with 
the  poisonous  herb  that  Socrates  died  of.  Hemlock 
tea  is,  or  at  least  used  to  be,  a  favorite  drink  of  the 
eastern   lumbermen,   and   I   have   myself   drunk   it 

149 


USEFUL  WILD  PLANTS 

with  a  certain  relish.  Similarly  the  leaves  of  the 
magnificent  Douglas  Spruce  {Pseudotsuga  taxifolia, 
Dritt.)  of  the  Pacific  coast  produce  by  infusion  a 
beverage  which  many  Lidians  and  some  whites  have 
esteemed  as  a  substitute  for  coffee. 

The  Mint  family,  well  advertised  by  the  pro- 
nounced and  usually  agreeable  fragrances  given  off 
])y  its  members,  has  been  utilized  as  a  source  less 
of  ordinary  beverages  than  of  medicinal  teas,  ad- 
ministered in  fevers  and  digestive  troubles.  Such 
plants  of  the  former  sort  as  have  come  to  my  notice 
are  all  western.  One  of  these  has,  in  fact,  played 
both  roles.  This  is  the  aromatic  little  vine  known 
in  California  as  Yerba  Buena  (the  botanist's  Micro- 
mer'ia  Douglasii,  Benth.),  found  in  half  shaded 
woods  and  damp  ravines  of  the  Coast  Ranges  from 
British  Columbia  to  the  neighborhood  of  Los  An- 
geles. Its  dried  leaves  steeped  for  a  few  minutes 
in  hot  water  make  a  palatable  beverage  mildly 
stimulating  to  the  digestion,  and,  like  real  tea,  even 
provocative  of  gossip;  for  it  is  an  historic  little 
plant,  this  Yerba  Buena,  which  gave  name  to  the 
^lexican  village  out  of  which  the  city  of  San  Fran- 
cisco afterwards  rose.  Tlie  two  words,  which  mean 
literally  ''good  herb,"  are  merely  the  Spanish  for 
our  term  ''garden  mint,"   of  whose   qualities   the 

150 


Ykrba  Br  en  a 
(Micromeria  Douglasii) 


151 


USEFUL  WILD  PLANTS 

wild  plant  somoAvliat  partakes.^  Of  the  Mint  tribe, 
also,  is  the  herb  Chia,  about  whose  edible  seeds 
something-  has  been  said.  At  the  present  day,  Chia 
is  better  known  as  a  drink  than  as  a  food.  A  tea- 
spoonful  of  the  seeds  steeped  in  a  tumbler  of  cold 
water  for  a  few  minutes  communicates  a  mucilagin- 
ous quality  to  the  liquid.  This  may  be  drunk  plain, 
but  among  the  Mexicans,  who  are  very  fond  of  it  as 
a  refreshment,  the  customary  mode  of  ser\^ing  it 
is  with  the  addition  of  a  little  sugar  and  a  dash  of 
lemon  juice.  The  tiny  seeds,  which  swim  about  in 
the  mixture,  should  be  swallowed  also,  and  add 
nutrition  to  the  beverage.  A  Spanish-California 
lady  of  the  old  school  gave  me  my  first  glass  of  Chia, 
and  recommended  it  as  ^'mejor  que  ice-cream' '  (bet- 
ter than  ice  cream). 

Of  quite  a  different  sort,  but  equally  refreshing 
and  easy  to  decoct,  is  the  woodland  drink  called 
*' Indian  lemonade,"  made  from  the  crimson,  berry- 
like fruits  of  certain  species  of  Sumac.  East  of  the 
Rockies    there    are    three    species    abundant,    dis- 

1  The  mint  of  the  gardens  {Mentha  viridis  and,  to  a  less  extent, 
.1/.  piperita)  is  a  common  escape  in  damp  ground  and  by  streamsides 
throughout  tlie  country.  In  the  Southwest  the  leaves,  under  the 
name  of  Verba  Buena,  are  used  in  the  same  way  as  those  of  Micro- 
meria.  A  steaming  hot  infusion  of  mint  leaves  is  a  bracing  beverage 
higlily  esteemed  ))y  tired,  wet  vaqueros  coming  in  at  evening  from 
their  day's  work  on  the  range. 

152 


Sumac 
(Rhus  glabra) 


153 


USEFUL  WILD  PLANTS 

tinguished  by  compact,  terminal,  cone-like  panicles 
of  ^vllite  (lowers  and  pinnate  leaves  that  turn  all 
glorious  in  the  autumn  in  tones  of  orange  and  red. 
They  are  BJiiis  typhuia,  L.  (Staghorn  Sumac),  R. 
(jhihra,  L.  (Smooth  Sumac),  and  R.  copallina,  L. 
(Dwarf  Sumac).  The  first  is  sometimes  a  small 
tree;  the  others  are  shrubs.  In  the  Eocky  Moun- 
tain region  and  westward  RJius  trilohata,  Nutt.,  is 
frequent — the  Squaw-bush,  as  it  is  called,  because 
the  branches  are  extensively  used  by  the  Indian 
women  in  basketry;  and  on  the  Pacific  coast,  Rhus 
ovata,  AVats.,  and  R.  integrifolia,  B.  &  H.,  stout 
shrubs  or  small  trees,  occur.  The  last  two  have 
leathery,  entire  leaves  quite  unlike  those  of  the 
eastern  species,  and  the  white  or  pinkish  flowers 
are  borne  in  tight  little  clusters.  The  berries  of  all 
these  sumacs  are  crimson  and  clothed  with  a  hairy 
stickiness  that  is  pleasantly  acid  and  communicates 
a  lemon-like  taste  to  w^ater  in  w^hich  the  fruit  has 
been  soaked  for  a  few  minutes.  These  plants — par- 
ticuhirly  the  western  species — are  often  found  grow- 
ing on  hot,  waterless  hillsides,  and  their  fruits  offer 
a  grateful  refreshment  to  the  thirsty  traveler, 
whether  sucked  in  the  mouth  until  bared  of  their  acid 
coating,  or  steeped  in  w^ater  to  serve  as  a  w^oodland 
lemonade.     The  three  far  western  species  are  com- 

154 


Si 


^t/r 


LE^rONADE-BERRY 

( I\h us  intrgrifolia ) 


155 


USEFUL  WILD  PLANTS 

monly  known  as  Lomonade-berry,  and  R.  integri- 
folla  is  also  sometimes  called  ''mahogany"  because 
of  its  hard  wood,  dark  red  at  the  heart.  The  Spanish 
people  call  it  mangla,  a  name  they  give  to  some  other 
sumacs  as  well. 

The  berries  of  the  Manzanita,  a  Pacific  coast  shrub 
that  was  described  in  an  earlier  chapter,  make  an 
exceptionally  agreeable  cider.  This  is  one  of  the 
harmless  beverages  of  Indian  invention,  and  I  can- 
not, perhaps,  do  better  than  to  quote  the  method  that 
Chesnut  describes  in  his  treatise  on  the  "Plants 
Used  bv  the  Indians  of  Mendocino  Co.,  California." 
Ripe  berries,  carefully  selected  to  exclude  any  that 
are  worm-eaten,  are  scalded  for  a  few  minutes  or 
until  the  seeds  are  soft,  and  then  crushed  with  a 
potato  masher.  To  a  quart  of  this  pulp  an  equal 
quantity  of  water  is  added,  and  the  mass  is  then 
poured  over  a  layer  of  dry  pine  needles  or  straw 
placed  in  a  shallow  sieve  basket  and  allowed  to  drain 
into  a  vessel  beneath;  or  sometimes  the  mass  is 
allowed  to  stand  an  hour  or  so  before  straining. 
AVhen  cool,  the  cider,  which  is  both  spicy  and  acid, 
is  ready  for  use  without  the  addition  of  sugar.  A 
better  quality  of  cider  is  said  to  result  if  the  pulp 
alone  is  used.  The  dried  berries,  in  the  latter  case, 
are  pounded  to  a  coarse  powder,  and  then  by  clever 

156 


BEVERAGE  PLANTS 

manipulation  and  tossing  in  a  flat  basket — a  process 
at  which  the  Indian  woman  is  an  adept — the  heavier 
bits  of  seed  are  made  to  roll  off  while  the  fine  par- 
ticles of  pulp  chng  to  the  basket. 

The  desert,  too,  has  its  beverage  plants.  There, 
if  anywhere,  pure  water  takes  its  place  as  tlie  most 
luxurious  of  drinks,  and  the  sands  bear  at  least  one 
group  of  plants  from  Avhicli  good  water  may  be 
obtained,  namely,  the  Barrel  Cactuses  {Echinocac- 
fus)  of  the  Southwest,  of  which  something  has  been 
said  under  another  head.  The  juices  of  most  cacti, 
while  often  plentiful,  are  as  often  bitter  to  nauseous- 
ness;  but  those  of  the  Barrel  Cactus — or  at  least  of 
certain  species — are  quite  drinkable,  and  the  rotund, 
keg-like  plants  serve  a  very  important  purpose  as 
reservoirs  of  soft  water.  This  is  readily  obtainable 
by  horizontally  slicing  off  the  top  and  pounding  up 
the  succulent,  melon-like  pulp  with  a  hatcliet  or  piece 
of  blunt,  hard  wood  that  is  not  bitter.  In  this  wav 
the  watery  content  is  released  and  may  be  dipped  out 
with  a  cup.  In  the  case  of  some  species,  I  ])elieve, 
the  juice  is  too  much  imx)regnated  witli  mineral 
substances  to  be  drinkable;  but  in  others — as  Echino- 
cactus  Wislizeniy  Engelm.,  E.  Enwri/i,  Engelm.,  and 
E.  cylindraceus,  Engelm. — the  fluid  obtained  is  clear 
and  pleasant  to  the  taste,  quenching  the  thirst  satis- 

157 


USEFUL  WILD  PLANTS 

factorily.  An  odd  and  all  but  forgotten  use  of  these 
vegetable  water  barrels  of  the  desert  is  their  former 
employment  by  Indians  as  cooking  vessels.  The 
fleshy  interior  was  scooped  out  and  the  shell  treated 
as  a  pot,  into  which  water  (secured  by  the  mashing 
up  of  the  pulp)  was  poured,  heated  with  hot  stones 
and  these  withdrawn  as  they  cooled  and  replaced 
with  hotter.  Meantime  the  meat  and  other  edibles 
were  dropped  in  and  allowed  to  simmer  until  done. 
Upon  breaking  camp,  the  cook  abandoned  her  im- 
promptu kettle,  depending  upon  tinding  material  for 
a  new  one  at  the  next  stopping  place. 

Throughout  the  arid  and  semi-desert  regions  of  the 
Southwest  from  New  Mexico  to  Southern  California, 
a  peculiar  plant  called  Ephedra  by  the  botanists  is 
abundant.  There  are  several  recogTiized  species  but 
all  have  so  strong  a  family  resemblance  that  in 
popular  parlance  they  are  lumped  as  one  and  spoken 
of  as  Desert  Tea  or  Teamster's  Tea.  Thev  are 
shrubby  plants,  two  or  three  feet  high,  greenish- 
yellow  and  distinguished  by  slim,  C3dindrical,  many- 
jointed  stems  and  abundant  opposite  branches,  the 
leaves  reduced  to  mere  scales.  The  clustered  flow- 
ers, inconspicuous  and  borne  in  the  axils  of  the 
branches,  are  of  two  sorts  on  different  plants,  the 
pistillate  producing  solitary,  black  seeds  of  intense 

158 


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BEVEKACJK  PLANTS 

bitterness.  Tlu'  plant  is  well  stocked  with  tannin, 
and  an  infusion  of  the  branches — green  or  di'icd — in 
boiling  water  has  long  been  in  favor  with  the  desert 
people,  red  and  white.  Desert  Tea  was  lirst  adopted 
by  the  white  explorers  and  frontiersmen  as  a  me- 
dicinal drink,  supposed  to  act  as  a  blood  purifier  and 
to  be  especially  efficacious  in  the  lirst  stages  of 
venereal  diseases;  but  its  use  at  meals  as  an  ordinary 
hot  beverage  in  substitution  for  tea  or  coffee  is  by 
no  means  uncommon,  and  cowbovs  will  sometimes 
tell  you  they  prefer  it  to  any  other.  The  Spanish- 
speaking  people  call  the  plant  CanidiWo,  a  word 
meaning  little  tube  or  pipe.  Similarly  used  is  the 
EnciniUa  or  Chaparral  Tea  {C rot  on  corymhidosus, 
Engelm.),  a  gray-leaved  plant  of  the  Euphorbia 
famil}^  found  in  w^estern  Texas  and  adjacent  regi(ms. 
The  flowering  tops  are  the  part  employed,  aiul  an 
infusion  of  them  is  palatable  to  many.  Dr.  Ilavard, 
in  an  article  on  "The  Drink  Plants  of  the  North 
American  Indians,"^  stated  that  in  his  experience 
not  only  Mexicans  and  Indians  enjoyed  it,  but  that 
the  colored  United  States  soldiers  of  the  southwest- 
ern frontier  preferred  it  to  coiTee.  The  phint  con- 
tains certain  volatile  oils  but  apparently  no  stimu- 
lating    principle.     Thdespcrma,     a     Southwestern 

2  Bulletin  Torrey  Botanical  Cliil..     \ol.  XXIII,  Xo.  2. 

151) 


USEFUL  WILD  PLANTS 

genus  of  herbaceous  plants  of  the  Composite  family, 
somewhat  resembling  Coreopsis,  with  opposite,  finely 
dissected,  strong-scented  leaves  and  yellow  flowers 
(sometimes  without  rays),  furnishes  a  species  or 
two  used  as  substitutes  for  tea  by  the  Mexican 
popuhition.  Thelesperma  longiioes,  Gray,  occur- 
ring from  w^estern  Texas  to  Arizona,  is  commonly 
known  as  Cota,  and  is  said  to  give  a  red  color  to  the 
water  in  which  it  is  boiled. 

'M\\q\\  more  appealing  to  the  average  taste  is  a 
drink  that  Mexicans  sometimes  make  from  the  oily 
kernels  of  the  jojoba  nut  of  Southern  California  and 
northern  Mexico  {Simmondsia  Calif ornicaj  described 
previously).  Mr.  Walter  Nordhoff,  formerly  of 
Baja,  California,  informs  me  that  the  process  fol- 
lowed is  first  to  roast  them  and  then  treat  them  in 
the  same  way  as  the  Spanish  people  prepare  their 
chocolate.  This,  I  believe,  is  to  grind  the  kernels 
together  with  the  yolk  of  hard  boiled  egg^  and  boil 
the  pasty  mass  in  w^ater  with  the  addition  of  sugar 
and  milk.  When  they  can  afford  it  a  pleasant  flavor- 
ing is  given  by  steeping  a  vanilla  bean  for  a  moment 
or  two  in  the  hot  beverage.  This  makes  a  nourish- 
ing drink  as  well  as  a  savory  substitute  for  one's 
morning  chocolate  or  coffee.  A  substitute  for  choco- 
late among  the  American  population  of  some  sec- 

160 


BEVERAGE  PLANTS 

tions  of  the  United  States  is  funiished  In-  tlio  rcddish- 
l)rown,  creei)iiig  rootstock  of  the  l^urph'  or  Water 
Avens  {Geiim  r'lvale,  L.),  a  jjereiiiiial  herb  with 
coarse,  pinnate  basal  leaves  and  5-petaled,  purplish, 
nodding  flowers,  borne  on  erect  stems  a  c()ni)le  of 
feet  high.  The  plant  is  frequent  in  low  ,2:!'()uii(ls  mid 
sw^amps  throughout  much  of  tlie  northern  i)art  of 
the  United  States  and  in  Canada,  as  well  as  in  Ku- 
rope  and  Asia.  The  rootstock  is  cliaracterized  ])y 
a  clove-like  fragrance  and  a  tonic,  astringent  prop- 
erty, and  has  been  used  by  country  people  in 
decoction  as  a  beverage,  with  milk  and  sugar,  under 
the  name  of  Indian  Chocolate  or  Chocolate-root.  It 
is  the  color,  however,  rather  than  the  taste  that  has 
suggested  the  common  name.  Lucinda  llaynes 
Lombard,  writing  in  ^^The  American  Botanist"  for 
November,  1918,  mentions  a  curious  popular  super- 
stition to  the  effect  that  friends  provided  with  Avens 
leaves  are  able  to  converse  with  one  another  though 
many  miles  apart  and  speaking  in  whispers! 

Readers  of  literature  concerning  old  time  explora- 
tions in  America  will  perhaps  recall  passages  in 
the  reports  of  various  writers  devoted  to  accounts 
of  a  beverage  called  Yaupon,  Cassena,  or  the  Black 
Drink,  formerly  in  great  vogue  among  the  Indians 
of  the  Southern  Atlantic  States  and  colonies.     One 

161 


USEFUL  WILD  PLANTS 

of  those  ancient  chroniclers  who  did  so  much  to 
misinform  Europe  about  the  New  World  and  its 
products,  speaks  of  this  Black  Drink  as  a  veritable 
elixir  that  would  ^'wonderfully  enliven  and  invie;- 
orate  the  heart  with  genuine,  easie  sweats  and 
transpirations,  preserving  the  mind  free  and  serene, 
keeping  the  body  brisk  and  lively,  not  for  an  hour 
or  two,  but  for  as  many  days,  without  other  nourish- 
ment or  subsistence. '^  (!)  William  Bartram,  to 
whose  account  of  the  Indian  uses  of  Southern  plants 
something  over  a  century  ago  reference  was  made  in 
an  earlier  chapter,  speaks  of  spending  a  night  with 
an  Indian  chief  in  Florida,  smoking  tobacco  and 
drinking  Cassena  from  conch  shells.  Bartram  does 
not  seem  to  have  liked  his  Cassena,  and  in  point 
of  fact  few  white  people  ever  did;  but  the  wide 
prevalence  of  its  consumption  among  the  Southern 
Indians,  who  once  drove  a  brisk  inter-tribal  trade  in 
the  leaves,  and  the  fact  that  the  Cassena  plant  is 
nearly  related  to  the  famous.  Paraguyan  drink  yerha 
mate'  have  created  some  latter-day  interest  in  the 
Black  Drink.  The  plant  from  which  it  is  made  is  a 
species  of  spineless  Holly  or  Ilex  (7.  vomit oria^  Ait.), 
frequent  in  low  woods  from  Virginia  to  Florida  and 
Texas.  It  is  a  shrub,  or  sometimes  a  modest  tree, 
with  small,  evergreen  leaves  which  are  elliptic  in 

162 


BEVERAGE  PLANTS 

shape  and  notched  around  the  edge,  and  in  autumn 
the  branches  are  prettily  stnchled  witli  rod  borries 
about  the  size  of  peas.     An  analysis  ol'  Hr'  dried 


Cassena 
(Ilex  vomitoria) 


leaves  reveals  a  small  percentage  (one-quarter  of 
one  per  cent.)  of  caffeine,  about  half  th(>  (luantity  of 
the  same  alkaloid  that  is  contained  in  the  leaves  of 

163 


USEFUL  WILD  PLANTS 

mate  {Ilex  Paragiiayensis).  The  leaves  were  cus- 
tomarily toasted,  thoroughly  boiled  in  water,  and 
then  cooled  hy  pouring  rapidly  from  one  vessel  to 
another  and  back  again,  which  also  developed  frothi- 
ness.  The  liquid  is,  as  the  name  indicates,  of  a  black 
color,  and  is  quite  bitter.  Dr.  E.  M.  Hale,  who  made 
a  special  study  of  the  subject  and  had  the  results 
pubUshed  by  the  United  States  Department  of  Agri- 
cuhure  ^  a  number  of  years  ago,  pronounced  it  a  not 
un])leasant  beverage,  for  which  a  liking  might  read- 
ily be  acquired  as  for  mate,  tea  or  coffee — in  fact 
somewhat  suggesting  in  taste  an  inferior  grade  of 
black  tea.  AYhen  very  strong  from  long  boiling,  it 
will  act  as  an  emetic — a  consummation  lightly  re- 
garded by  the  Indians,  who  merely  drank  again. 

Two  other  species  of  Ilex  growing  wild  throughout 
a  greater  part  of  the  length  of  our  Atlantic  seaboard 
possess  leaves  that  have  been  similarly  used  as  sub- 
stitutes for  Chinese  tea.  One  is  /.  glabra,  Gray, 
popularly  known  as  Inkberry,  a  rather  low-growing 
shrub  of  sandy  soils  near  the  coast,  with  shiny, 
wedge-shaped,  evergreen  leaves,  and  ink-black  ber- 
ries; the  other,  7.  verticillata,  Gray,  a  much  taller 
shrub,  with  deciduous  foliage,  and  bright  red  berries 
clustered  around  the  stems  and  persisting  in  winter. 

3  Bulletin  14,  Division  of  Botany. 

164 


BEVERAGE  PLANTS 

The  latter  species  is  called  in  common  speech  IMack 
Alder  or  Winter-berry,  and  frequents  swampy 
ground  as  far  west  as  the  ^lississippi. 

The  spicy,  aromatic  inner  ])ark  and  younf^  twi^s 
of  the  Sweet  or  Cherry  l>ireh  (Brfida  loita^  L.)  also 
deserve  mention,  as  the  basis  of  that  old-time  domes- 
tic brew,  birch  beer.  The  characteristic  flavor  is  due 
to  an  oil  like  that  distilled  from  Wintergreen  {Gaul- 
theria  procumhens).  This  species  of  birch  is  a 
graceful  forest  tree  with  leaves  and  bark  sui»-gesting 
a  cherry,  and  is  of  frequent  occurrence  in  rich  wood- 
lands of  the  Atlantic  seaboard  States.  The  sap  is 
sweet,  like  the  Sugar  Maple's,  and  may  be  similarly 
gathered  and  boiled  down  into  a  sugar.  The  nearly 
related  River  Birch  {Betula  nigra,  L.),  a  denizen  of 
low  grounds  and  streamsides  throughout  much  of 
the  eastern  United  States,  particularly  southward, 
is  a  potential  fountain  in  early  spring  when  the  sap 
is  i-unning.  At  that  season,  if  you  stab  the  trunk 
with  a  knife,  stick  into  the  cut  a  splinter  to  act  as  a 
spout,  then  set  a  cup  beneath  to  catch  the  drippings, 
you  will  have  shortly  a  draught  as  clear  and  cool  as 
spring  water,  with  an  added  suggestion  of  sugar. 
The  tree  is  distinguished  by  slender,  drooping 
branches,  which  sleet  storms  in  winter  sometimes 
badly    shatter    and    break.     From    such    niitcndod 

165 


USEFUL  WILD  PLANTS 

wounds,  hundreds  in  number,  the  sap  later  on  will 
drop  pattering  to  the  ground;  and  I  have  stepped 
from  bright  sunshine  on  a  March  day  into  the  shadow 
of  one  of  these  trees  and  been  sprinkled  by  tlie 
descending  spray  as  by  a  shower  of  rain. 

On  re-reading  this  chapter  I  see  I  have  overlooked 
two  common  wild  plants  whose  possibilities  for  tea 
making  are  worth  the  camper's  knowing.  One  is 
that  charming  little  creeping  vine  with  evergreen 
thyme-like  leaves  exhaling  the  fragrance  of  winter- 
green,  Chiogenes  liispidula,  T.  and  G.,  the  Creeping 
Snowberry,  which  delights  in  cool  upland  bogs  of 
the  northern  Atlantic  seaboard.  The  tiny  white 
flowers,  solitary  in  the  axils  of  the  leaves,  are  less 
showy  than  the  white  berries  which  give  the  plant 
its  name.  Readers  of  Thoreau  will  recall  his  brew- 
ing his  best  tea  of  it  in  the  Maine  woods.  The  other 
plant  is  a  familiar  Pacific  Coast  fern,  Pellaea 
ornitliopus,  Hook.,  the  Bird's-foot  ClitT-brake,  found 
in  dry  ground  nearly  throughouit  California,  and 
easily  identified  by  the  division  of  the  fronds  into  a 
series  of  stiff  triple-pointed  segments  strikingly  like 
the  three  spreading  toes  of  a  bird's  foot.  Tea  made 
by  steeping  the  dried  fronds  is  both  tasty  and 
fragrant. 


166 


CHAPTER  VIII 
VEGETABLE  SUBSTITUTES  FOJl  SOAP 

To  soothe  and  cleanse,  not  madden  and  pollute. 

Wordsworth. 

AMONG  the  pleasant  pictures  of  my  mental  gal- 
lery is  one  of  an  autumn  evening  at  a  Puehlo 
Indian  village  in  New  Mexico,  where  I  chanced  to  he 
a  few  years  ago.  The  sun  was  near  setting,  seeking 
his  nightly  lodging  in  the  home  of  his  mother,  who, 
according  to  the  ancient  Indian  idea,  lives  in  the 
hidden  regions  of  the  west;  on  the  house-tops  the 
corn  huskers  were  gathering  into  baskets  the  nnilti- 
colored  ears  that  represented  the  day's  labor;  along 
the  trail  from  the  well  some  laughing  girls  were 
filing,  w^ith  dripping  jars  of  water  on  their  heads; 
the  village  flocks,  home  from  the  plain,  were  crowd- 
ing bleating  into  corrals ;  and  from  open  doors  came 
the  steady  hum  of  metates,  the  fragrance  of  grinding 
corn,  and  the  shrill  music  of  the  women's  mealing 
songs.  Then  up  the  street  came  i)attering  a  couple 
of  burros  loaded  with  fire-wood  and  driven  by  an 

167 


USEFUL  WILD  PLANTS 

old  Lidian  man.  Immediately  three  or  four  women 
appeared  at  house  doors  and  called  inquiringly 
^'amolcV^  The  old  man  halted  his  donkevs,  lifted 
from  one  a  sack,  out  of  which  he  drew  several  pieces 
of  thick,  blackish  root,  which  he  distributed  impar- 
tially among  the  women,  and  then  proceeded  on  his 
way.  The  root,  it  transpired,  was  a  sort  of  vegetable 
soap  and  answered  to  that  strange  word  of  the 
women,  amole.  This,  in  fact,  is  the  name  current 
throughout  our  Spanish  Southwest  for  several  com- 
mon wild  plants  indigenous  to  that  region,  and  rich 
enough  in  saponin  to  furnish  in  their  roots  a  natural 
and  satisfactory  substitute  for  commercial  soap. 
Several  are  species  of  the  familiar  Yucca — in 
particular  Y.  haccata,  Y.  angiistifolia  and  Y.  glauca. 
Americans  who  prefer  their  own  names  for  things 
call  them  soap-root,  when  they  do  not  say  Spanish 
bayonet,  or  Adam's  Thread-and-Xeedle  or  just 
Yucca.  All  three  species  mentioned  have  large, 
thick  rootstocks  firmly  and  deeply  seated  in  the  earth, 
so  that  a  pick  or  crow-bar  is  needed  to  uproot  them. 
Before  the  white  traders  introduced  the  sale  of  com- 
mercial soap,  aynole  was  universally  used  by  Mexi- 
cans and  Indians  for  washing  purposes,  and  the 
l^ractice  is  not  yet  obsolete  by  any  means.  The 
rootstock  is  broken  up  into  convenient   sizes   and 

168 


\EGETABLE  SUBSTITUTES  EUll  SOAP 

washed  free  from  any  adhering  dirt  and  grit.  Then, 
when  needed,  a  piece  is  mashed  with  a  stone  or 
hammer,  dropped  into  a  vessel  containing  water, 
cold  or  warm,  and  rubbed  vigorously  up  and  down 
until  an  abundant  lather  results — and  this  comes 
very  quickh\  After  dipping  out  the  fibre  and 
broken  fragments,  the  suds  are  ready  for  use.  They 
answer  every  purpose  of  soap,  and  are  particularly 
agreeable  in  their  effect  upon  the  skin,  leaving  it 
soft  and  comfortable.  A  shampoo  of  amole  is, 
among  the  long-haired  Southwestern  Indians,  not 
only  a  luxury  but  a  prescribed  preliminary  to  cere- 
monies of  the  native  religious  systems.  Even  whites 
recognize  the  efficacy  of  the  root,  and  an  American 
manufacturer  in  the  Middle  "West  has  for  years  been 
making  a  toilet  soap  with  the  rootstock  of  Yucca 
haccata  as  a  basis.  It  is  put  upon  the  market  under 
the  name  of  Amole  Soap. 

Certain  species  of  Agave,  that  is,  the  Century 
Plant  fraternity,  are  frequent  along  the  Mexican 
border  and  contain  saponin  in  greater  or  less  quan- 
tity, affording  a  soap  substitute  as  do  the  Yuccas. 
Best  known,  perhaps,  is  the  species  that  Spanish- 
speaking  residents  call  lechuguilla  (botanically, 
Agave  lechuguilla,  Torn).  This  is  distinguished  by 
a  cluster  of  radical,  yellowish-green,  spine-tipped, 

169 


USEFUL  WILD  PLANTS 

fleshy  leaves,  few  in  number  (rarely  over  fifteen)  and 
barely  a  foot  long,  the  flowers  borne  in  a  close  panicle 
almost  like  a  spike.  The  short  trunk  of  the  plant  is, 
I  believe,  the  part  usually  used  for  soap ;  but  Dr. 
J.  X.  Rose,  in  his  ''Notes  on  Useful  Plants  of 
Mexico,'^  quotes  Havard  as  authority  for  the  state- 
ment that  saponin  is  found  in  the  leaves  of  this 
species.  The  rootstock  of  a  related  Texan  species 
{A.  varier/afa,  Jacobi)  is  also  soapy,  and  the  paper 
by  Dr.  Rose  just  mentioned  quotes  a  statement  by 
a  resident  of  Bro^\msville,  Texas,  to  the  effect  that  a 
piece  of  the  rootstock  of  the  latter  species  as  big 
as  a  walnut,  grated  and  mixed  with  a  quart  of 
warm  water,  will  clean  a  whole  suit  of  clothes.  The 
most  used  Agave-amoles,  however,  are  plants  of 
Mexico,  the  discussion  of  which  would  not  be  perti- 
nent here. 

Of  wide  occurrence  in  California  is  an  amole  of 
quite  a  different  appearance.  It  is  the  bulbous  root 
of  a  plant  of  the  Lily  family,  by  botanists  fearfully 
and  wonderfully  called  CMorogalum  isomer idianum, 
Kunth.  The  average  American  simplifies  this  into 
California  Soap-plant.  Its  first  appearance  is 
shortlv  after  the  winter  rains  set  in,  and  for  several 
months  all  that  one  sees  of  it  is  a  cluster  of  stemless, 
grass-like,    crinkly    leaves,    lolling   weakly    on    the 

170 


California  Soap-pla'^t 
(Chloroga I u m  po meridia n u m ) 


171 


California  Soap-plant 
(Chlorogalu m  pomeridianum) 


172 


VEGETABLE  SUBSTITUTES  FOR  M)AP 

ground.  Late  in  the  spring,  a  slender  flower  stalk 
puts  up  and  at  the  height  of  four  or  five  feet  breaks 
into  a  widely  spreading  panicle  of  white,  lily-like 
but  small  blossoms,  that  open  a  few  at  a  time  at 
evening,  shine  like  stars  through  the  night  and 
wdther  away  the  next  morning.  To  tlie  economist 
the  most  interesting  part  of  the  plant  is  su])ter- 
ranean.  This  is  a  bottle-shaped  bulb,  rather  deep 
set  in  the  ground,  and  thickly  clad  in  a  coat  of 
coarse,  bro^^Tl  fibre.  When  this  fibre  is  stripped  off, 
a  moist  heart  is  disclosed  an  inch  or  two  in  diameter 
and  about  twice  as  long.  Crush  this,  rub  it  up 
brisklv  in  w^ater,  and  a  lather  results  as  in  the  case 
of  Yucca  and  quite  as  efficacious  for  cleansing.  In- 
deed, the  absence  of  alkali — an  absence  that  is  a 
characteristic  of  the  amoles — makes  the  suds  es- 
pecially valuable  for  washing  delicate  fabrics.  Some 
users  of  this  California  amole  prefer  first  to  mb 
the  crushed  bulb  directly  upon  the  material  to  be 
washed,  just  as  one  w^ould  do  with  a  cake  of  soap, 
and  then  manipulate  the  article  in  the  clear  water. 
The  lather  is  said  to  be  also  useful  for  removing 
dandruff.  However  that  may  be,  it  unquestionably 
makes  an  excellent  shampoo  and  leaves  the  hair  soft 
and  glossy.  The  bulbs  may  be  used  either  fresli  or 
after  having  been  kept  dry  for  months.     Our  knowl- 

173 


USEFUL  WILD  PLANTS 

edge  of  the  cleansing  property  resident  in  this  bulb 
is  a  gift  from  the  California  Indian,  who,  in  spite  of 
the  popular  notion  to  the  contrarj^,  has  a  taste — 
though  not  an  extravagant  taste — for  cleanliness. 

Another  well-known  California  soap  plant  is  a 
species  of  Pig-weed  (Chenopodiiim  Calif ornicum, 
AVats.),  abundant  throughout  much  of  the  State  in 
arroyos  and  on  moist  hillsides.  It  is  a  stout,  weedy- 
looking  herb,  with  inconspicuous,  greenish  flowers 
in  slender,  terminal  spikes,  and  toothed,  triangular 
leaves  turning  yellow  and  dying  as  the  dry  season 
advances.  The  stout  stems,  a  foot  or  two  high,  grow 
numerously  from  the  crown  of  a  very  deep-seated, 
si3indle-shaped  root  which  is  at  times  a  foot  long 
and  requires  industrious  digging  to  lift  it  from  its 
earthv  bed.  While  fresh  it  is  rather  brittle  and 
readily  crushed  with  a  hammer,  when,  if  agitated  in 
water,  it  quickly  communicates  a  soapy  frothiness 
to  the  liquid,  and  is  cleansing  like  the  other  suds 
noted.  The  roots  may  be  laid  away  for  use  w4ien 
dry,  in  which  state  they  are  as  hard  almost  as  stone, 
and  require  to  be  grated  or  ground  in  a  handmill 
before  using.  The  saponaceous  property  in  this  root 
was  also  discovered  first  bv  the  Indians.^ 

1  The  roots  of  the  Southern  Buckeve  or  Horsechestnut    (Aescuhis 
Pavia,  L.)    are  rich  in   saponin,  and  Dr.  Porcher   states  that  their 

174 


A    Pacific    Coast    soap    plant    (Chloroi^aluiii    ponwriduinion) . 
The  bulb,  stripped  of  its  fibrous  covering,  is  highly  saponaceous. 
The  fiber  is  useful   for  making  coarse  brushes  and  mattresses. 


ouii.iimiilMi  uWiipiWi  I 


_£.:s:: 


■^^BS«-»5i*»"».   ' 


Tunas,    fruit    of    a    Southwestern    cactus— Showing    how    it    is 
opened  to  secure  the  meaty  pulp.      (See  page   109.) 


VEGETABLE  SUBSTITUTES  FOR  SOAP 

The  soap  plants  thus  far  luinied  must,  i'roni  the 
nature  of  the  case,  suffer  extcrmiiiMtioii  in  tlie 
fuliilling  of  their  mission,  ])ut  there  are  others  in- 
digenous to  the  United  States  that  need  not  be  killed 
to  serve.  First  among  these  may  be  mentioned  the 
genus  CeanotJius,  one  species  of  which — the  New 
Jersey  Tea — has  already  claimed  attention  in  the 
chapter  on  Beverage  Plants.  The  genus  comprises 
about  thirty-five  species,  nearly  all  shrubs  or  small 
trees  confined  to  the  western  United  States  and 
northern  Mexico.  They  are  particularly  al)undant 
on  the  Pacific  Coast,  and  are  popularly  known  as 
*'wild  lilac"  and  ^'myrtle"  (one  or  two  species  as 
^'buck  brush").  They  are  frequently  an  important 
element  in  the  chaparral  cover  of  the  mountain 
sides,  and  in  the  spring  their  fiowers  create  beautiful 
effects  in  such  situations,  forming  unbroken  sheets 
of  white  or  blue,  acres  in  extent.  The  fresh  blossoms 
of  many  species — perhaps  of  most  or  even  all — are 
saponaceous,  and  rubbed  in  water  produce  a  cleans- 
ing lather  that  is  a  good  substitute  for  toilet  soap. 
Care  must  be  exercised,  however,  to  inck  off  any 
green  footstalks  that  cling  to  the  llowers,  as  these 

suds  are  preferable  to  commercial  soap  for  washing'  and  whiteninj? 
woolens,  blankets  and  dyed  cottons,  the  colors  of  which  are  improved 
by  the  process. 

175 


USEFUL  WILD  PLANTS 

tend  to  give  the  suds  a  greenish  tinge  and  a  weedy 
smell.  This  floral  soap  is  not  only  perfectly  cleans- 
ing but  leaves  the  skin  soft  and  faintly  fragrant. 
It  is  a  poetic  sort  of  ablution,  this  bathing  with  a 
handful  of  snowy  blossoms  plucked  from  a  bush  and 
a  little  water  dipped  out  of  the  brook,  and  revives 
our  faith  in  the  Golden  Age,  when  Nature's  friendly 
outstretched  hand  was  less  lightly  regarded  than 
nowadays.  Similiarly  of  use  are  the  fresh,  green 
seed-vessels,  though  these  often  have  a  resinous 
coating  that  is  apt  to  cause  a  yellowish  stain,  if  the 
rinsing  is  not  perfect. 

The  cherished  Balloon  vine  of  our  gardens  does  not 
include  soapiness  among  its  charms,  but  it  can  at 
least  claim  cousinship  with  some  of  the  world's  most 
famous  soap  plants — namely,  certain  species  of  the 
genus  Sapindus,  trees  or  shrubs  native  to  the  warmer 
regions  of  both  hemispheres.  The  name  Sapindus 
means  ''soap  of  the  Indies,"  where,  as  well  as  in 
China  and  Japan,  several  species  have  been  drawn 
upon  for  detergent  material  from  very  early  times, 
and  are  still  in  favor  for  washing  the  hair  and  deli- 
cate goods,  such  as  silk.  Within  the  limits  of  the 
United  States,  three  species  are  indigenous:  Sap- 
indus saponaria,  L.,  abundant  from  Brazil  to  the 
West  Indies,  finds  a  lodgment  on  the  extreme  south- 

176 


VEGETABLE  SUBSTITUTES  FOR  SOAP 

ern  tip  of  Florida,  and  besides  its  soapy  possibilities 
possesses  seeds,  hard  and  ])lack,  that  serve  for  beads 
and  buttons;  S.  marginatus,  AVilld.,  an  evergreen 
tree  sometimes  sixty  feet  in  height,  occurs  along  our 
southern  Atlantic  seaboard  from  the  Carolinas  to 
Florida;  S.  Drummondii,  IT.  &  A.,  ranges  from 
Kansas  to  Louisiana  and  westward  to  Arizona,  and 
is  known  to  Americans  as  Soap-berry  or  Wild  China 
tree,^  and  to  the  Spanish-speaking  people  as  jahon- 
cillo  (little  soap).  All  three  species  are  trees  with 
pinnate  leaves  (non-deciduous  in  the  first  two)  and 
small,  w^hite  flowers  borne  in  terminal  panicles;  and 
all  produce  fleshy  berries  about  the  size  of  cherries 
and  containing  one  or  two  seeds.  It  is  in  these 
berries  that  the  soapy  property  dwells,  and  this  is 
readily  communicated  to  water  in  which  the  berries 
are  rubbed  up.  Li  the  case  of  S.  Drummondii,  the 
clusters  of  yellow  berries  (turning  black  as  they 
dry)  are  a  conspicuous  feature  of  the  bare  winter 
branches,  for  it  is  their  habit  to  persist  on  the  trees 
until  spring. 

Also  of  the  West  is  a  species  of  gourd  occurring 
in  dry  soil  from  Nebraska  to  Mexico  and  westward 
to   the   Pacific.     In   some   sections   it   is   known  as 

2  From  its  resemblance  to  the  true  China  tree  {Mrlia  Azcdnrnch), 
extensively  planted  for  ornament  and  shade  in  the  Soutliern  Stales. 

177 


Soap-berry 
(Sapindus  marginatus) 


178 


VEGETABLE  SUBSTITUTES  FOR  SOAP 

Missouri  Gourd  and  in  California  as  ^Inck  Orange. 
Botanically  it  is  Ciicurhifd  forfidissima,  TIIM\,  and 
the  rank,  garlicky  odor  given  off  ])y  the  crushed 
leaves  makes  the  specific  appellation  very  apropos. 
It  is  a  coarse,  creeping  vine  with  solitary,  showy, 
vellow  flowers  and  robust,  triangular  leaves  that 
have  a  fashion  of  standing  upright  in  liot  wcatlier, 
like  ears;  and  it  spreads  so  industriously  tliat  at  the 
summer's  end  its  tip  may  be  as  nuich  as  twenty-five 
feet  away  from  the  starting  point,  which  is  tlie  crown 
of  a  deep-seated,  woody,  perennial  root  shaped  like 
a  carrot.  In  the  autumn  the  shriveling  leaves  reveal 
numerous,  round,  yellow  gourds,  which  conspicu- 
ously dot  the  ground  and  are  likely  at  first  glance 
to  deceive  one  into  thinking  them  spilled  oranges — a 
fact  that  accounts  for  one  popular  name.  These 
gourds  are  pithy,  but  such  pulp  as  they  contain,  as 
w^ell  as  in  the  roots,  is  saponaceous,  and  crushed  in 
water  both  fruit  and  root  yield  a  cleansing  lather. 
It  is,  however,  apt  to  leave  the  skin  with  a  harsh 
feehng  for  a  few  moments,  not  altogether  pleasant. 
There  appears  to  be  saponin  in  the  vine  also,  since 
Doctor  Edward  Palmer  has  stated  that  in  northern 
Mexico  a  Cucurbita,  that  is  undoubtedly  this  species, 
has  been  extensively  used  by  laundresses  who  mash 
up  the  vines  with  the  gourds  and  add  all  to  their 

179 


Missouri  Goued 
(Cucurbita  foetidissima) 


180 


VEGETABLE  SUBSTITUTES  FOR  SOAP 

wash  water.  To  wear  uiulcr-clothes  thus  washed, 
one  must  be  indifferent  to  the  pricldes  of  the  rou^^h 
hairs  and  broken  fibre  that  are  of  necessity  mingled 
with  the  water.  Among  tlie  Spanish-speaking 
people  of  the  Soutliwest,  this  gourd  goes  by  the 
name  Calahasilla.  In  old  x>h^iits  the  root  is  some- 
times six  feet  long  and  five  or  six  inches  in  diameter. 
This,  descending  perpendicularly  into  tlie  earth, 
enables  the  plant  to  reach  moisture  in  arid  wastes 
where  shallow-rooted  plants  would  perish.  The 
dried  gourds,  it  may  be  added,  may  l)e  very  conven- 
iently used  as  darning-balls. 

Probabh'  the  most  widely  known  of  all  our  Ameri- 
can soap  plants — though  not  all  who  know  the  plant 
are  aware  that  it  bears  soap  in  its  gift — is  an  herb 
of  the  Pink  familv  that  used  to  have  a  corner  in 
many  old-fashioned  gardens  under  the  name  of 
Bouncing  Bet  (Saponaria  ofpcinalis,  L.).  It  is  a 
smooth,  buxom  sort  of  plant  with  stems  a  foot  or 
two  tall  and  noticeably  swollen  at  the  joints,  oval, 
ribbed  leaves  set  opposite  to  each  other  in  two's,  and 
dense  clusters  of  white  or  pink  5-petaled  flowers.  It 
is  not  a  native-born  American,  but  came  hither  from 
Europe  early  in  the  white  immigration  and  has  now 
become  naturalized  in  many  parts  of  the  country 
near  the  settlements  of  men,  where  it  is  often  so 

181 


USEFUL  WILD  PLANTS 

common  as  to  be  classed  as  a  weed.     The  juice  of 
the  roots  is  mucilaginous  and  soapy,  producing  a 


BouxciNG  Bet 

(Saponaria  officinalis) 


lather  when  agitated  in  water,  and  the  peasantry 
in  some  parts  of  Europe  use  it  to-day  for  soap.  By 
the  brothers  in  European  monasteries,  centuries  ago, 

182 


VEGETABLE  SUBSTITUTES  EOll  SOAP 

its  virtue  as  a  capital  cleansing  agent  was  well  un- 
derstood, and  they  employed  it  for  scouring  clotli 
and  removing  stains.  They  gave  it,  in  monkish 
fashion,  a  Latin  name,  licrhn  fiiUinnon,  which  in 
English  translation,  Fuller's  herl),  is  sometimes  still 
assigned  it  in  books;  but  in  every-day  speech  the 
rustic  English  name,  Soap  wort,  is  more  usual.  Tn 
our  Southern  States  a  pretty  local  name  that  has 
come  to  my  notice  is  ^*My  Lady's  Wash-bowl."  It 
was  in  a  Saponaria,  I  believe,  that  the  glucoside 
saponin — the  detergent  principle  of  the  soap  i)lants 
— was  first  discovered  and  given  its  name.  That 
was  about  a  century  ago,  and  since  then  chemists 
have  identified  the  same  substance  existing  in  vary- 
ing degrees  in  several  hundred  species  throughout 
the  world.^  In  most  plants,  however,  the  c|uantity 
is  too  small  to  make  a  serviceable  lather. 

3  N.     Kruskal.     "Soaps    of     tlie     N'egetable     Kingdom,"     in     "The 
Pharmaceutical  Era,"  Vol.  XXXI,  Xos.  13,  14. 


183 


CHAPTEE  IX 

SOME  MEDICINAL  WILDINGS  WOKTH 

KNOWING 

Romeo.     Your  plantain  leaf  is  excellent  for  that. 
Benvolio.     For  what,  I  pray  thee? 
Romeo.     For  your  broken  shin. 

Borneo  and  Juliet. 

THE  subject  of  medicinal  plants  is  one  that  I 
approach  with  considerable  reluctance;  be- 
cause, though  the  employment  of  wild  herbs  as  reme- 
dies has  been  a  cherished  practice  with  sick  humanity 
whether  savage  or  civilized  from  the  earliest  times, 
there  exists  still  great  diversity  of  opinion  about 
the  efficacy  of  particular  simples.  One  has  only  to 
thumb  over  any  ancient  herbal  or  old  botanical 
manual  or  the  succeeding  editions  of  pharmacopoeias 
to  notice  the  decline  and  fall  of  one  popular  medicinal 
plant  after  another  with  the  progress  of  the  years, 
and  so  to  become  rather  skeptical  about  the  whole 
subject.  Nevertheless,  it  is  a  poor  chaff-pile  that 
does  not  hold  some  kernels  of  pure  grain;  and  this 
chapter,  without  professing  to  trench  upon  the  prov- 

184 


SOME  MEDICINAL  WILDINGS 

ince  of  the  chemist  who  distils  and  extracts  a 
multitude  of  medicines  from  the  herbs  of  the  licld, 
will  call  attention  to  a  few  of  those  plants  growing 
wild  whose  reputation  for  the  relief  of  some  simple 
disorders  appears  well  grounded.  At  any  rate  they 
are  harmless. 

Such  medicinal  wildings  may  be  classed  under  two 
principal  heads:  those  occurring  also  in  Europe  or 
Asia,  or  naturalized  here  from  the  Old  World,  their 
uses  therefore  being  part  of  the  white  race's  tra- 
ditional knowledge ;  and  those  indigenous  plants  that 
found  place  in  the  medical  practice  of  the  Indians, 
from  whom  we  have  got  a  hint  of  their  value. 

In  the  former  class  one  of  the  best  known  is 
Yarrow  or  Milfoil  {Achillea  Millefolium,  L.),  a  per- 
ennial herb  a  foot  or  two  high,  of  the  Composite 
family,  with  flat-topped  clusters  of  small,  usually 
white-rayed  flower-heads,  and  finely  dissected  leaves. 
It  is  found  throughout  the  United  States  and  much 
of  Canada  in  various  soils  and  situations,  and  was 
said  by  Fremont  to  be  one  of  the  commonest  of  i)lants 
observ^ed  during  the  whole  of  one  of  his  transconti- 
nental journeys.  The  entire  plant  above  ground 
may  be  dried  and  an  infusion  of  it  (a  pint  of  boiling 
water  poured  upon  a  handful)  may  be  administered 
for  a  run-down  condition  or  a  disordered  digestion, 

185 


USEFUL  WILD  PLANTS 

the  action  being  that  of  a  mildly  stimulating  bitter 
tonic.  The  familiar  Lloar-hound  {Marruhiiim  vul- 
gar e,  L.),  originally  introduced  from  Europe  for  a 
garden  herb  in  the  Atlantic  States,  has  long  since 
taken  out  naturalization  papers  as  an  American,  and 
is  now  found  wild  across  the  continent  and  from 
Maine  to  Texas.  It  is  a  somewhat  bushy  perennial 
of  the  Mint  family,  with  square,  white-woolly  stems, 
grayish,  roundish  leaves  prominently  veined  and 
wrinkled,  and  small,  white  flowers  densely  clustered 
in  the  leaf  axils.  The  calyx  of  the  flower  is  provided 
w^ith  ten  short  teeth  hooked  at  the  tips,  which  catch 
readily  in  the  coats  of  passing  animals  or  people's 
clothing,  facilitating  the  spread  of  the  plant.  The 
dried  herb  is  tonic  and  a  bitter  tea  made  of  it  is  a 
time-honored  household  remedy  for  debilitv  and 
colds,  being  expectorant  and  promotive  of  perspira- 
tion.    In  large  doses  it  proves  laxative. 

Apropos  of  laxatives,  an  indigenous  wild  plant 
that  has  been  popularly  esteemed  in  this  regard  and 
w^hose  value  was  detected  because  of  the  herb's  rela- 
tionship to  the  famous  Senna  of  the  Old  World,  is 
Cassia  Marylandicaj  L.,  commonly  known  as  Wild 
or  American  Senna.  The  leaves,  collected  upon  the 
maturing  of  the  seeds,  and  dried,  used  to  be  among 
the  offerings  of  the  Shaker  herbalists.     An  infusion 

186 


SOME  MEDICINAL  WILDINGS 

of  them  may  be  made  in  the  pi-()i)()i-1i()ii  of  alxjiit  an 
omice  of  the  leaves  to  a  ])int  of  hoilin*,'-  water — the 
dose,  two  or  three  fluid  ounces  of  the  liquid,  repeated 


Wild  Sexna 

(Cassia  Marylaudica) 

if  needful.  The  American  plant  contains  tlie  same 
general  principles  as  the  Old  World  s|)ecies  ])ut  in 
less  proportion,  and  is  correspondiniily  less  active. 
It  is  a  stout,  herbaceous  perennial,  three  to  eight 

187 


Wild  Senna 
(Cassia  Marylandica) 


188 


SOME  MEDICINAL  WILDINGS 

feet  high,  bearing  pinnate  leaves  and  showy  racemes 
of  yellow  flowers  in  the  upper  leaf-axils,  followed 
in  autumn  by  long,  curved  pods  or  legumes,  and 
occurs  in  damp  ground  and  swamps  from  the  Missis- 
sippi Valley  to  the  Atlantic;  and  from  the  Canadian 
border  to  the  Gulf. 

Another  plant  which,  although  indigenous,  I  be- 
lieve, only  to  America,  is  so  near  akin  to  a  popular 
tonic  herb  of  Europe  that  its  use  may  have  first  ])een 
suggested  by  the  resemblance,  is  Boneset  {Eupa- 
torium  perfoliatumy  L.).  This  is  a  stout,  hairy  per- 
ennial of  the  Composite  tribe,  with  rather  narrow, 
joointed,  wrinkled  leaves  opposite  in  pairs  upon  the 
stem  and  united  around  it  at  the  base,  so  as  to  make 
each  pair  present  the  appearance  of  one  long  leaf 
skewered  through  the  middle;  whence  another  com- 
mon name  for  the  plant,  Thoroughwort.  The  large 
clusters  of  white  flower-heads  are  rayless.  The 
leaves  and  flowering  tops  are  dried,  and  a  l)itter  tea 
is  made  of  them.  Taken  cold,  this  is  tonic  and 
stimulating  in  small  doses  and  laxative  in  large  ones. 
The  hot  infusion  is  an  old-time  remedy  for  a  fresh 
cold  or  sore  throat,  and  may  be  taken  during  the 
cold  stage  of  malarial  fever.  The  i)hnit  is  connnou 
in  low  meadows  and  damp  grounds  throughout  tlu^ 
eastern  United  States  and  Canada. 

189 


USEFUL  WILD  PLANTS 


-4"^ 
.••,.-•- 


""'1'^)  *  ..■ 


BOXESET 

(Eupatorium  perfoliatum) 

And  of  course  every  holder  to  the  old  traditions 
is  loyal  to  Wild  Cherry  bark.  This  is  taken  from 
the  familiar  Wild  Cherry  tree  {Primus  serotina, 
Ehrh.),  growing  along  streams  and  fence-rows  and  in 

190 


SOME  MEDICINAL  WILDINGS 


woods  from  eastern  Canada  to  Texas.  It  is  from 
forty  to  eighty  feet  high  and  identifia])le  l)y  its  shiny 
reen  leaves  (too  often  a  prey  to  caterpiUars)  and 


g 


Wild  Cherry 
(Pruniis  serotina) 

its  close  racemes  of  small  white  ih)wers  succeeded 
by  small,  black,  juicy,  fhittened  fruit  with  a  l)itter 
but  vinous  flavor.     An  infusion  of  the  dried  bark 


USEFUL  WILD  PLANTS 

(gathered  preferably  in  the  autumn)  in  cold  water, 
in  the  i)roportion  of  one-half  ounce  of  bark  to  a  pint 
of  water,  enjoys  a  reputation  both  as  a  mild  sedative 
suited  to  cases  of  nervous  excitability  and  as  a  tonic 
adapted  to  debility  and  impaired  digestion.  Also 
of  popular  esteem  as  a  stimulant  to  digestion  and  a 
remedy  for  dyspeptic  conditions  is  the  root  of  the 
Sweet-flag  or  Calamus  {Acorus  Calamus,  L.).  This 
l)lant  is  a  denizen  of  swamps  and  stream  borders 
throughout  the  eastern  United  States,  usually  grow- 
ing directly  in  the  water  and  often  in  company  with 
cat-tails.  Its  erect,  sword-like  leaves,  three  to  four 
feet  tall,  are  pleasantly  aromatic,  and  this  fragrance 
serves  to  distinguish  the  plant,  when  out  of  flower, 
from  the  somewhat  similar-looking  Blue-flag  or  Iris, 
whose  roots  are  reputed  to  be  poisonous.  The 
Sweet-flag  belongs  to  the  Arum  family,  and  its  flow- 
ering is  as  curious  as  inconspicuous,  being  produced 
as  a  compact,  greenish  spike  from  the  side  of  a  stalk, 
the  interior  of  which  is  sweet.  The  rootstock,  dug 
in  the  autumn  or  spring,  washed  and  then  dried, 
is  chewed  as  a  stomachic.  The  unpeeled  root  is  more 
efficacious  than  the  peeled. 

It  was  the  popularity  of  the  Old  World  Pennyroyal 
doubtless  that  first  caused  attention  to  be  directed 
to  a  little  minty  annual  common  in  dry  soil  and  old 

192 


SOME  MEDICINAL  WILDINGS 


fields  pretty  much  tlirougliout  the  Ignited  States  east 
of  the  Mississippi  and  called  American  I^']lnyroyal 
{Hedeofua  pulegioides,  Pers.).  It  is  pun.2:ently  aro- 
matic, from  a  few  inches  to  a  foot  tall,  with  small, 
opposite  leaves  nar- 
rowing to  the  base 
and  tiny,  bluish  flow- 
ers clustered  in  the 
upper  leaf-axils. 
The  plant  contains  a 
volatile  oil,  and  a  hot 
infusion  of  the  dried 
leaves  and  flowering 
tops  is  an  old-fash- 
ioned remedv  for  flat- 
ulent  colic,  sick  stom- 
ach and  bowel  com- 
plaints. Then  there 
is  the  nearly  related 
Dittany  {Cunila  Mar- 
iana, L),  growing  on 
dry  woodland  hills  from  New  York  to  Florida,  a 
perennial  plant  of  about  the  height  of  the  American 
Pennyroyal,  but  witli  larger  leaves,  rounded  at  the 
base  and  conspicuously  clear-dotted.  The  herb  is 
gently  stimulant,  and  a  tea  made  of  it  is  a  })leasant 

193 


Dittany 
(Cunila  Mariana) 


USEFUL  WILD  PLANTS 

and  refreshing*  beverage  that  is  sudorific  and  has  a 
respectable  phice  among  the  rural  remedies  for  feb- 
rile conditions.  Dr.  Porcher  quoted  an  old-time 
South  Carolinian  as  sajang  that  '^everybody  cured 
everything  with  dittany." 

The  plants  whose  seeds,  crushed  to  a  flour  and 
sifted,  constitute  the  mustard  of  commerce  and  mus- 
tard plasters,  are  principally  two,  both  of  which, 
though  native  to  the  Old  World,  are  found  abun- 
dantly growing  wild  within  our  limits.  The 
more  common  is  Black  Mustard  (Brassica  nigra, 
L.),  occupying  roadsides,  fields  and  waste  land  on 
both  sides  of  our  continent.  It  is  a  stout,  much- 
branched  herb,  Avith  coarse,  deeply  lobed  basal 
leaves,  and  varies  in  height  from  two  to  twelve  or 
fifteen  feet.  Its  most  robust  development  in  this 
country  is  on  the  Pacific  coast,  where  in  the  spring 
its  showy  racemes  of  yellow  flow^ers  make  solid  sheets 
of  color  on  the  plains  and  mesas,  acre  upon  acre,  to 
the  delight  of  tourists  and  the  disgust  of  the  land- 
owners. In  Syria  it  attains  similar  proportions  and 
is  believed  to  be  the  mustard  of  the  gospel  parable. 
The  other  Mustard  plant  is  the  closely  related  Bras- 
sica alba,  (L.)  Boiss.,  popularly  known  as  White 
Mustard.  It  is  rarely  over  two  feet  high,  and  is 
distinguished  from  its  black  cousin  by  hairiness  of 

194 


SOME  MEDICINAL  WILDINGS 

stem  and  seed  pod,  tlie  latter  usually  constricted 
between  the  seeds. 

Among  a  considerable  portion  of  our  population 
the  Indians  have  enjoyed  fi-oni  vci-y  early  tiinos  a 
reputation  for  special  knowledge  in  the  i-cniedi.il 
properties  of  wild  plants;  but  doubtless  they  have 
been  credited  much  in  excess  of  Iheir  deserts. 
Nevertheless,  there  are  some  of  the  aboriginal  reme- 
dies worthy  of  all  respect.  Prominent  among  them 
are  two  or  three  plants  of  the  Pacific  Coast.  One 
of  these  seems  first  to  have  been  brought  to  light 
through  the  contact  of  the  Franciscan  missionaries 
of  the  eighteenth  century  with  the  Indians  of  South- 
ern California,  and  is  still  quite  generally  known  l)y 
its  Spanish  name,  Cascara  sagrada,  that  is  "sacred 
bark."  It  is  a  shrub  or  small  tree  of  the  genus 
Rhamnns,  with  somewhat  elliptic,  prominently 
veined  leaves,  abundant  clusters  of  tiny  yellowish 
flowers  in  spring  succeeded  in  the  autumn  by  a  con- 
spicuous crop  of  inedible  berries  turning  yellowish- 
crimson  and  finally  black.  The  plant  is  considered 
by  some  botanists  as  of  one  variable  species  {Hliaw- 
mis  Calif ornica,  Esch.),  and  by  others  as  of  two— the 
name  i?.  Purshiana,  DC,  being  applied  to  the  arbo- 
real form,  which  is  conunon  through  the  northern 
coast  regions  as  far  as  British  Columbia  and  east- 

11)5 


Cascara  sagrada 
(Rhamnus  California) 


196 


SOME  MEDICINAL  WILDINGS 

ward  to  the  Rockies,  attaining  a  hcip:ht  at  times  of 
thirty  feet  or  so,  with  a  trunk  a  foot  in  diameter.  Li 
that  region  it  goes  by  a  number  of  names  as  Chittem- 
wood,  Wahoo  and  Bitter-bark.  Other  local  names 
are  Pigeon-berry  and  Wild  Coffee — the  latter  ])e- 
cause  of  some  superficial  resemblance  of  the  seeds 
to  coffee  beans.  The  shrubby  form,  connnon  in 
Southern  California  and  the  Great  Basin  region,  is 
from  a  few  to  a  dozen  feet  high,  forming  usually  a 
dense  clump  touching  the  ground. 

The  medicinal  value  of  the  Cascara  sagrada  is  in 
the  bark,  which  is  regarded  as  one  of  the  safest  and 
best  laxatives  in  the  world,  especially  valualjle  in 
cases  of  chronic  constipation.  It  acts,  at  the  same 
time,  as  a  tonic  and  tends  to  improve  the  appetite. 
For  the  best  results  the  bark  should  be  collected  in 
the  autumn  or  early  spring  and  at  least  a  year  before 
being  used.  A  small  piece  of  the  bark  put  into  a 
glass  of  cold  water  and  allowed  to  soak  over  night 
makes  a  useful  tonic,  drunk  first  thing  in  the  morn- 
ing. For  a  laxative,  hot  water  should  be  i)ouriMl 
upon  the  bark  in-  the  proportion  of  a  teacupful  to  a 
level  teaspoonful  of  the  finely  broken  1)ark,  set  away 
to  cool,  and  drunk  just  before  bed-time.  Country 
people  have  told  me  that  the  fresh  l)ark  boiled  sev- 
eral hours  is  equally  efficacious.     The  gathering  of 

197 


USEFUL  WILD  PLANTS 

Cascara  sagrada  for  the  medical  trade  is  an  im- 
portant minor  industrj^  in  the  Pacific  Northwest,  the 
bark  of  tlie  Purshiana  or  arboreal  form  being  the 
kind  preferred.  There  is  a  considerable  European 
demand  for  it,  as  well  as  from  American  chemists. 

Another  of  the  famous  Pacific  Coast  remedies  is 
Yerba  Santa,  whose  Spanish  name  (meaning  "holy 
herb")  also  betravs  its  connection  with  the  Cali- 
fornia  Mission  days,  when  the  Padres  not  only 
instructed  Indians  but  now  and  then  learned  some- 
thing from  them.  An  American  common  name  for 
the  plant — Consumptive's  Weed^ — indicates  one  of 
its  popular  uses.  It  has,  in  fact,  been  esteemed  for 
generations  in  California  as  an  expectorant,  a  blood 
purifier,  and  a  tonic — a  standby  in  all  bronchial  and 
respiratory  troubles.  Botanically  it  is  Eriodictyon 
ghitinosmn,  Benth.,  and  is  a  shrubby  plant,  three  to 
seven  feet  high,  wdth  dark  green,  resinous  leaves 
(shaped  somewhat  like  those  of  the  peach)  glutinous 
and  shining  on  the  upper  side  and  whitish  under- 
neath, the  flowers  tubular,  clustered  and  usually 
purple  but  sometimes  white.  It  is  abundant  on  dry 
hillsides  and  among  the  chaparral  throughout  much 
of  California  and  southward  into  Mexico.     A  bitter 

1  Others  are  Mountain  Balm,  Gum  Leaves,  Bear's-weed  and  Wild 
Peach. 

198 


Verba  Santa 
(Eriodictyon  glutinosum) 


199 


USEFUL  WILD  PLANTS 

tea  is  made  of  the  dried  leaves  and  taken  freely;  or 
it  may  be  prepared  by  boiling  with  sugar,  if  it  is 
desired  to  disguise  the  bitterness.  The  pounded 
leaves  have  also  been  used  as  a  poultice,  bound  upon 
sores. 

The  civilized  drug  Grindelia  is  derived  from 
certain  species  of  a  botanic  genus  of  that  name  be- 
longing to  the  Sunflower  family  and  occurring 
rather  abundantly  on  the  plains  and  dry  hillsides 
west  of  the  Mississippi.  They  are  coarse,  sticky 
plants,  characterized  by  white,  gummy  exudations 
upon  the  buds  and  flower  heads  (these  latter  are 
conspicuously  yellow-rayed)  and  are  popularly 
called,  on  that  account.  Gum-plants.  The  California 
Lidians  are  credited  with  being  the  pioneers  in  dis- 
covering the  remedial  secret  of  these  plants,  the 
species  most  used  by  them  being  apparently  Grm- 
delia  rohiista,  Nutt.  A  decoction  of  the  leaves  and 
flowering  tops  collected  during  the  early  period  of 
bloom  is  a  mild  stomachic,  and  is  taken  to  purify 
the  blood,  as  well  as  to  relieve  throat  and  lung 
troubles. 

The  Lidian  is  also  to  be  thanked  for  our  knowl- 
edge of  Yerba  Mansa  (or  more  correctly,  Yerba  del 
Manso,  *Hhe  herb  of  the  tamed  Indian''),  common 
in  wet,  alkaline  soil  throughout  much  of  the  South- 

200 


Yerba  Mansa 
(Anemopsis  Calif oniica) 


201 


USE.FUL  WILD  PLANTS 

west — a  low-growing  pGrennial,  carpeting  the  ground 
with  its  dock-like  leaves  and  starred  in  spring  with 
conical  spikes  of  small,  greenish  florets,  subtended 
bv  showv  involucres  of  white  bracts.  It  is  the 
botanists'  Anemopsis  Calif ornica,  H.  &  A.  The  pep- 
loery,  aromatic  root  is  astringent,  and  is  chewed 
raw,  after  drying,  for  affections  of  the  mucous 
membrane,  and  also  made  into  a  tea  for  purifying 
the  blood.  It  is  one  of  the  most  popular  of  remedies 
among  the  Mexican  population,  who  employ  it  also  to 
relieve  coughs  and  indigestion  or  pretty  much  any- 
thing. As  an  external  remedy  for  cuts,  bruises  and 
sores  on  man  or  beast,  either  the  tea  or  a  poultice 
of  the  wilted  leaves  is  employed. 

For  external  use  in  such  cases,  tw^o  other  western 
plants  are  valuable,  particularly  for  the  healing  of 
that  bane  of  the  horseman,  the  saddle  gall.  One  is 
an  ill-smelling  shrub  of  the  Southwestern  desert 
region  variously  called  Creosote-bush,  Greasewood 
(one  of  many  Greasewoods,  by  the  way)  and,  by  its 
Spanish  names,  Gobernadora  and  Hediondilla. 
Botanically,  it  is  Larrea  Mexicana,  Moric,  or,  ac- 
cording to  other  nomenclaturists,  Covillea  tridentata, 
(DC.)  YixW.  It  is  distinguished  by  curious  little 
evergreen  leaves  each  consisting  of  two  pointed, 
sticky  leaflets,  yellow  5-petaled  flowers,  the  petals 

202 


SOME  MEDICINAL  WILDINGS 

set  edgewise  to  the  liglit,  and  round  silky  sood- 
vessels  like  fluffy  white  pellets.  The  brniiclu's  are 
banded  at  intervals  in  black.  It  ^j^rows  in  the  arid- 
est    of    soils,    from    Southern    California    eastward 


CREOSOTE-BrSTI 

(Larrea  Mexicana) 


across  Arizona  and  soutlnvard  into  "Mexico.  An 
antiseptic  lotion  may  be  made  by  steeping  the  twigs 
and  leaves  in  boiling  hot  water,  efTective  in  the 
treatment  of  sores  and  wounds  both  of  men   and 

20:^ 


USEFUL  WILD  PLANTS 

animals. 2  The  other  plant  referred  to  is  Stachys 
Calif ornica,  Benth.,  called  Mastransia  by  the  Mexi- 
cans, with  whom  it  is  a  standard  remedy.  It  is  a 
hairy  herb  of  the  Mint  tribe,  a  foot  or  two  high, 
Avith  rather  small,  purple,  2-lipped  flowers  and  some- 
what triangular  leaves  rather  wrinkled  in  texture, 
the  whole  plant  quite  distinctively  odorous.  It  is 
found  up  and  6.o\yi\  the  Pacific  Coast  in  various 
situations,  and  varies  more  or  less  accordingly  in 
its  characters.  Mr.  J.  Smeaton  Chase,  who  has  used 
it  with  signal  success  for  saddle  galls,  tells  me  that 
the  green  plant,  freshly  gathered,  is  customarily  em- 
ployed. An  infusion  of  stem  and  leaves  is  made  by 
soaking  them  for  a  few  minutes  in  boiling  water. 
This  is  applied  as  a  wash  to  wounds  or  sores.  The 
soaked  leaves  may  also  be  bound  upon  the  parts  as 
a  poultice.  Stachys  is  a  genus  of  wide  distribution 
in  both  hemispheres,  and  in  England  certain  species 
long  ago  gained  repute  as  remedial  agents,  under 
the  suggestive  common  name  Woundwort. 

Patrons  of  quinine  may  find  in  our  wild  flora  sub- 
stitutes by  no  means  negligible,  when  their  sup- 
ply of  cinchona  gives  out.     The  most  important  are 

2  Mr.  J.  S.  Chase,  in  his  recent  book  "California  Desert  Trails," 
states  that  a  half  inch  or  so  of  the  stem  of  the  Creosote-bush,  peeled 
and  held  in  the  mouth  like  a  pebble,  is  an  Indian  device  for  staving 
off  thirst  on  desert  journeys  when  water  is  scarce. 

204 


Flowering  Dogwood  {Conius  florida,  L.)  The  bark  is 
used  in  making  a  medicine  similar  to  quinine,  and  that  of  the 
root  produces  a  red  dye  used  by  the  Indians.     ^See  page  2Z5.) 

(Courtesy  of  the  New  York  Botanical  Gardens.) 


SOME  MEDICINAL  WILI)IN(;s 

certain  shrubs  or  small  trees  of  the  Do^^vood 
family,  which  has  representatives  on  l^oth  sides  of 
the  continent.  One  of  these  is  the  well-known 
Flowering  Dogwood  {Connis  forUJa,  L.),  whieli 
beautifies  spring  woodlands  with  its  showy  white 
floral  involucres  from  Canada  to  Florida  mid  Texas. 
The  bark  is  tonic,  mildly  stinndant  and  anti-inter- 
mittent, and  many  physicians  have  recognized  its 
worth  as  a  remedy  in  intermittent  fevers,  inferior 
only  to  Peruvian  bark.  A  decoction  is  made  of  the 
dried  bark  of  either  the  tree  itself  or  the  root,  the 
latter  being  the  stronger.  (The  fresh  bark  is  said 
to  be  cathartic.)  On  the  Pacific  Coast  from  British 
Columbia  to  Southern  California  a  kindred  species  is 
the  Western  Dogwood  (Cornus  Nut  tall  li,  Aud.), 
which  resembles  in  general  appearance  its  eastern 
cousin.  The  bark  is  similarly  useful.  Townsend, 
in  his  journal  of  the  Wyeth  expedition  to  the  Pacific 
Coast  in  the  early  days,  tells  of  his  curing  two 
Oregon  Indian  children  of  fever-and-ague  with  this 
Dogwood,  his  supply  of  quinine  being  exliausted. 
He  boiled  the  fresh  bark  in  water  and  administered 
about  a  scruple  a  day.  In  three  days  his  little 
patients  were  well.  As  he  worked  over  the  decoc- 
tion, the  Indians  crowded  about  him  curiously;  and 
*'I  took  pains,"  he  writes,  ''to  explain   the  wliole 

205 


USEFUL  WILD  PLANTS 

matter  to  them,  in  order  that  they  might  at  a  future 
time  be  enabled  to  make  use  of  a  valuable  medicine 
which  grows  abundantly  everywhere  throughout  the 
country.'^ 

Closely  related  to  the  Dogwoods  is  a  genus  of 
shnibs  called  by  botanists  Garry  a.  Several  species 
are  indigenous  to  our  Far  West.  They  are  ever- 
green with  inconspicuous  flowers,  w^hich  are  of  two 
sexes  borne  on  separate  individuals  in  drooping, 
tassel-like  clusters  or  catkins.  Garrya  elUptica, 
Dough,  is  a  common  shrub  of  the  California  chapar- 
ral, that  has  been  considered  ornamental  enough  to 
be  introduced  into  gardens  both  in  this  country  and 
abroad  under  the  name  ^'Silk-tassel  bush.''  Bark, 
leaves  and  fruit  are  exceedingly  bitter.  The  in- 
herent principle  seems  to  be  the  same  as  in  the  Dog- 
woods, and  a  decoction  of  bark  or  leaves  has  been 
similarlv  used  for  the  relief  of  intermittent  fevers. 
The  shrub  is  known  locally  as  Quinine-bush  and 
Fever-bush."^ 

3  A  multitude  of  wild  plants  have  at  various  times  and  in  all 
parts  of  our  country  had  a  place  in  popular  favor  as  remedies 
more  or  less  efficacious  for  the  bite  of  venomous  serpents.  They 
are  usually  called,  in  common  speech,  Kattlesnake-weed,  Rattlesnake- 
root,  Rattlesnake-master,  or  among  the  Spanish-speaking  people  of 
the  Southwest,  Yerba  de  Vibora  or  (Solondrina.  Their  real  value, 
however,  is  so  questionable  that  it  seems  hardly  worth  while  to 
devote  space  here  to  their  description. 

206 


SOME  MEDICINAL  WILDINGS 

Among  Spanish  Calii'ornians  an  hcrl)  of  tlio 
Pacific  Coast  believed  useful  in  fevers  is  Cancliala- 
gua,  or  as  the  Americans  call  it  Wild  (,)uinine 
{Eryiliraea  venusta.  Gray).  Tt  is  of  the  Gentian 
family,  whose  characteristic  bitterness  it  possesses; 
and  is  one  of  the  most  charming  of  western  spring 
flowers,  common  on  dry  hillsides  tliroughout  nuich 
of  California — the  bright  pink  blossoms  with  a  yel- 
low eye  borne  in  terminal  clusters  upon  plants  a 
few  inches  to  two  feet  high,  with  lance-slia])e(l  leaves 
in  opposite  pairs.  Of  the  same  family  and  some- 
what similar  in  appearance  but  with  leaves  clasping 
a  quadrangular  stem  is  the  American  Centaury 
(Sahhatia  angularis,  Pursh.),  common  on  the  Atlantic 
side  of  the  continent  from  Canada  to  Florida.  The 
dried  herb  is  intensely  bitter,  and  is  popular  among 
old-fashioned  folk  for  its  tonic  properties. 

One  of  the  most  interesting  plants  of  the  Pacilic 
Coast  is  a  beautiful  evergreen  forest  tree,  known 
variously  as  California  Bay,  California  Laurel, 
Pepperwood  and  Oregon  Myrtle  {UmhcUuUiria  Cal- 
if or7iica  [H.  &  A.]  Xutt.).  It  is  a  member  of  the 
Laurel  family  (to  which  the  Sassafras,  the  Ohl 
World  Bay  and  the  Camphor-tree  liolong)  and  is 
characterized  by  a  strong,  pungent  odor  givm  olT 
from  the  crushed  leaves,  somewhat  suggesting  bay 

207 


Canchalagua 
(Erythraea  venusta) 


208 


SOME  MEDICINAL  WILDINGS 

rum.  This  peculiar  aromatic  quality  of  tlio  loaf  is 
diagnostic  of  the  tree,  but  has  the  unph'asaiil  clTcrt 
of  causing  headache  in  some  persons  if  inhal('(l  too 
freely.  The  cause  is  a  volatile  oil  resident  in  the 
leaf,  which  is  popularly  believed  to  be  of  medicinal 
value  in  several  ways.  A  decoction  of  the  fresh 
foliage  is  sometimes  used  as  a  disinfectant  wash,' 
or,  applied  to  the  scalp,  for  headache.  As  a  head- 
ache remedy,  on  the  homeopathic  ])rineiple,  the 
Indians  were  accustomed  to  place  a  portion  of  a  leaf 
in  the  nostril.  A  bath  of  hot  water  in  which  a 
quantity  of  the  leaves  has  been  thrown,  followed 
by  a  thorough  rubbing  of  the  body,  is  a  prescribed 
remedy  for  rheumatism  said  to  have  been  efficacious 
in  some  cases.  The  aromatic  vapor  arising  from 
the  leaves  boiling  in  water  and  allowed  to  circulate 
through  the  house  w^as  a  preventive  measure  em- 
ployed with  faith  by  some  people  upon  the  Pacific 
Coast  during  the  recent  Spanish  Influenza  epidemic. 
The  leaves  appear  to  be  also  valuable  for  driving 
fleas  away. 

4Chesniit  states  that  the  oil  of  the  k'af  has  an  clTfct  upon  the 
skin  comparable  to  that  of  camphor  and  menthol.  I  am  indehttM 
to  his  monograph,  already  quoted,  for  some  of  the  facts  given  in 
this  paragraph. 


209 


CHAPTER  X 
MISCELLANEOUS  USES  OF  WILD  PLANTS 

0  mickle  is  the  powerful  grace  that  lies 
In  plants,  herbs,  stones,  and  their  true  qualities; 
For  nought  so  vile  that  on  the  earth  doth  live 
But  to  the  earth  some  special  good  doth  give. 

Borneo  and  Juliet. 

IN  the  days  before  game  laws  came  into  being 
within  the  limits  of  the  United  States,  several 
wild  plants  were  employed  for  catching  fish.  I  do 
not  mean  that  they  were  used  as  bait,  but  in  a  very 
different  way,  long  practised  by  the  Indians.  The 
plants  in  question  contain  in  their  juices  narcotic 
poisons,  which,  stirred  into  the  water  of  ponds,  deep 
pools  or  running  streams  temporarily  dammed,  con- 
taining fish,  stupefy  the  latter  without  killing  them, 
and  cause  them  to  float  inert  to  the  surface,  where 
they  may  be  easily  gathered  into  baskets.  No  ill  ef- 
fects appear  to  result  from  eating  fish  so  poisoned, 
and  in  old  times  in  California  there  was  ample  chance 
to  test  the  matter,  as  both  white  men  and  red  were 

210 


MISCELLANEOUS  USES 

prone  to  satisfy  their  appetite  for  fish  in  this 
iiiannor.  Such  pot-huntiiii;  has  now,  hcnvevor,  for 
many  years  been  forbidden  by  law.  In  California 
the  bulbs  of  the  Soap-phuit  {('lilorof/dhim  /fonicri- 
dianum,  already  described)  were  mostly  used,  buing 
first  crushed  in  quantity,  thrown  into  tlir  water,  and 
mixed  with  it.  Next  to  these  in  pojiularity  W(M-e  the 
macerated  stems  and  leaves  of  the  Turkey  Mulltiii 
{Croton  setigeriis,  Hook.),  the  Spanish-C'alifor- 
nians'  Yerha  del  pescado — that  is,  *'iisli-weed." 
This  plant  is  a  rather  low-spreadin.ic,  bristly-hairy, 
grayish  herb,  with  little  greenish  blossoms  that  are 
scarcely  noticeable.  It  appears  in  the  fields  and 
plains  of  midsummer  and  remains  through  the 
autumn.  Hunters  of  wild  doves  know  it  well,  as 
these  birds  are  very  fond  of  the  seeds  and  collect  in 
numbers  to  feed  where  the  '  ^  mullein ' '  grows — to  their 
undoing.  Employed  in  the  same  way  on  the  Atlantic 
seaboard  were  the  seeds  of  the  Southern  or  Red 
Buckeye  {Aescidus  Pavia,  L.),  a  tree  that  occurs 
from  Virginia  to  Florida  and  Avestward  to  tlie 
Mississippi  Valley.  According  to  Porcher,  the  fresh 
kernels  were  customarilv  macerated  in  water,  mixed 
with  wheat-flour  to  form  a  stiff  paste,  and  thrown 
into  pools  of  standing  water.  The  dazed  lish  would 
float  up  to  the  top  and  had  then  only  to  be  picked 

211 


USEFUL  WILD  PLANTS 


up.     If  placed  in  fresh  water,  they  would  soon  re- 
vive. 

When  they  wanted  to,  Indians  knew  quite  well 
where  to  go  for  material  for  fishing  lines  and  nets 

— their  knowledge  of 
wild  plants  packed 
with  useful  fiber  being 
rather  extensive. 
One  of  the  most 
widely  distributed  of 
these  native  fiber 
plants  is  the  so-called 
Indian  hemp  {Apocy- 
yium  cannabinum,  L.), 
an  herbaceous  peren- 
nial with  a  smooth, 
milkj^-juiced,  woody 
stem  two  to  four  feet 
high,  and  inconspicu- 
ous, greenish-white  flowers  producing  very  slender 
seed-pods  about  four  inches  long.  It  is  found  in 
thickets  and  dampish  ground  from  Canada  to 
Mexico  and  from  the  Atlantic  to  the  Pacific.  The 
usual  preliminary  preparation — as  in  the  case  of  all 
the  wild  fiber-plants,  I  believe — was  to  rot  the  stems 
by  soaking  them  in  water.     After  that  the   outer 

212 


Indian  Hemp 
(Apoeynutn  cannabinum) 


Indian  Hemp 
(Apocynum  cannabinumj 


213 


USEFUL  WILD  PLANTS 

bark  readily  separates  and  leaves  exposed  a  soft, 
long,  brownish  fiber  which  is  both  strong  and  last- 
ing*. At  one  time  some  of  the  aborigines  wove  this 
into  articles  of  clothing,  but  the  -commoner  use  of  it 
was  in  making  fish-  and  carrying-nets,  string  and 
ropes.  Peter  Kalm  speaks  of  the  Swedes  in  the 
Delaware  Eiver  colonies  a  century  and  a  half  ago 
preferring  such  ropes  to  those  of  common  hemp,  and 
bought  them  from  their  Indian  neighbors  at  the 
astonishing  rate  of  '^fourteen  yards  for  a  piece  of 
bread!" 

The  Lidians  of  the  lower  Colorado  River  obtained 
a  fiber  suitable  for  fishing  lines  and  nets  from  a 
leguminous  plant,  Sesbania  macrocarpa,  Muhl.,  a  tall 
annual,  sometimes  as  much  as  twelve  feet  high,  with 
pinnate  leaves,  yellowish,  pea-like  flowers  purple- 
spotted,  and  very  narrow,  drooping  seed-pods  a  foot 
long.  It  is  commonly  known  as  Wild  Hemp,  and 
grows  in  moist  soil  from  South  Carolina  and  Florida 
westward  and  along  the  Mexican  border.  On  the 
Pacific  Coast  another  plant  of  the  Pea  family  that 
has  entered  into  the  weaving  art  of  the  Indians,  is 
Psoralea  macrostachya,  DC,  a  cousin  of  the  famous 
Prairie-potato  mentioned  in  an  earlier  chapter.  It 
is  a  stout,  heavy-scented  perennial,  three  to  twelve 
feet  high,  with  leaves  consisting  of  three  leaflets,  and 

214 


MISCELLANEOUS  USES 

bearing  in  summer  silky  spikes  of  small,  purplish 
flowers.  Its  favorite  habitat  is  the  bordr-rs  of 
streams.  l>esides  the  inner  ])ark,  which  is  an  excel- 
lent material  for  making  coarse  thread,  the  larL^ii 
root  contains  a  valuable  fiber.  This  the  ralifornia 
Indians  used  to  secure  by  pounding  out  the  root.  A 
pleasing  feature  of  the  fiber,  wliether  of  the  root  or 
the  stem,  is  an  aromatic  perfume,  which  persists  for 
months.^  Various  species  of  Nettle,  too,  soaked  in 
water,  yield  a  fiber  for  cord  making,  as  the  Indians 
long  since  discovered.  The  Nettle,  indeed,  has  been 
a  primitive  source  of  thread  in  both  hemispheres: 
and  Prior,  in  his  '^ Popular  Names  of  P>ritish 
Plants,"  quotes  an  old  writer  as  saying,  ''Scotch 
cloth  is  onlv  the  housewiferv  of  the  nettle." 

Another  fairly  good  fiber,  utilizable  for  twine  and 
rope,  has  been  secured  from  several  species  of 
Asclepias,  the  familiar  Milkweeds.  Among  tliesc 
may  be  mentioned  especially  the  S\vani[)  Milkweed 
{Asdepias  incarnaia,  L.),  with  smooth  stem  and 
foliage,  and  red  or  rose-purple  flowers.  It  is  a 
frequent  denizen  of  swampy  land  throughout  the 
eastern  half  of  the  country  from  Canada  to  the  (inlf. 
In  the  same  class  is  a  well-known  woolly  .Milkwe.-d 

1  Chesnut,   "Plants  Used  by   the   Induins  of  -Mendocino   Co..   Cal. 
fornia." 

215 


USEFUL  WILD  PLANTS 

of  the  Pacific  Coast  {A.  eriocarpa,  Bonth.),  char- 
acterized by  cream-colored  flowers  and  foliage 
clothed  with  a  hoary  hairiness.  The  commonest 
Milkweed  of  eastern  fields  and  waste  places,  A. 
Syriaca,  L.,  yields  a  fiber  that  has  been  used  to  some 
extent  in  paper  making,  and  for  weaving  into 
muslins.  Li  fact,  the  white  man's  interest  in  all 
our  wild  fibers  has  been  largely  directed  in  latter 
times  to  their  adaptability  to  adulterating  and 
cheapening  fabrics.^ 

The  most  important  of  all  our  native  fiber  plants 
are  the  Yuccas  and  Agaves.  It  is  from  Mexican 
species  of  the  latter  genus — and  possibly  of  both 
genera — that  the  valuable  Sisal-hemp,  imported  from 
Mexico,  is  made,  with  which  our  United  States 
species  have  never  successfully  competed.  Fiber 
from  the  Yucca  (probably  Y.  haccata,  Torr.)  was  in 
extensive  use  by  the  prehistoric  people  who  built  the 
cliff  dwellings  of  the  Southwest,  as  is  proved  by 
sandals,  rope  and  cloth  found  in  these  remarkable 
ruins.  According  to  the  Zuni  tradition  it  was  from 
Yucca  fibers  that  men  made  the  first  clothing  for 

2  For  many  interesting  details  touching  the  general  subject  of 
wild  fibers,  reference  is  made  to  Reports  5  and  6,  Office  of  Fiber  In- 
vestigation, U.  S.  Dept.  of  Agriculture,  entitled  respectively  "Leaf 
Fiber  of  the  United  States,"  and  "Uncultivated  Bast  Fibers  of  the 
United  States,"  by  C.  11.  Dodge. 

216 


MISCELLANEOUS  USES 

themselves  when  thev  einerii^ed  from  the  iiiulcrworkl 
(their  first  home)  into  this  world  ol"  liKhl.  Tliou^li 
the  spread  of  white  education  amon<^  our  abori<^ines 
has  caused  this  ancient  textile  art  to  become  almost 
a  lost  one,  it  is  not  entirely  so.  Here  an<l  there  an 
old  Indian  is  still  run  across  who  holds  to  the  tradi- 
tions of  the  elders  and  works  Hk'  aiicit'iil  works. 
One  such  not  long  ago,  living  on  the  Calit'oriiia 
desert,  made  me  from  the  fiber  of  the  ^lescal  plant 
{Agave  deserti)  a  pair  of  sandals  of  innnemorial 
pattern,  the  spongy  sole  an  inch  thick  turned  up  at 
the  heel,  and  with  an  elaborate  arrangement  of  cords 
to  keep  the  foot  in  place. 

Both  Agave  and  Yucca  are  treated  in  the  same 
manner  to  separate  the  fiber.  After  soaking  the 
leaves  in  water  to  soften  them,  they  are  pounded 
and  repeatedly  rinsed  until  the  pulpy  ])arl  is  dis- 
posed of.  The  fibers  are  then  combed  out,  twisted 
into  strands,  and  woven  as  desired.  According  to 
Dr.  Palmer,  the  old-time  Southern  California 
weavers  were  famous  for  their  Yucca  tiber  ropes, 
nets,  hairbrushes  and  saddle  blankets.  In  the  last 
a  padding  of  softer  fiber  obtained  from  the  (luiote 
{Yucca  Whim)lei)  w^is  employed  to  relieve  the 
harshness  of  the  Yucca  haccata  fiber. '^     The  tough 

3  The  American  Naturalist,  Sept.,   1878. 

217 


USEFUL  WILD  PLANTS 

epidermis  of  Yucca  leaves,  split  into  narrow  strips, 
makes  a  coarse  basket  material,  serviceable  more- 
over as  a  cord  substitute  for  tying  and  jacketing 
articles  to  be  hung  up,  as  hams  and  watermelons. 
In  the  East  the  same  may  be  done  with  the  strong, 
fibrous  bark  of  the  Moose-wood  or  Leather-wood 
(Dirca  pahistris,  L.),  the  hois  cle  plomh  of  the 
French-Canadians.  It  is  a  deciduous  shrub,  two  to 
six  feet  high,  much  branched  and  characterized  by 
a  tough  bark,  suggesting  leather  in  its  pliability,  the 
pale  greenish  flowers  preceding  the  leaves  in  small 
terminal  fascicles  in  early  spring.  Damp  woodlands 
are  its  favorite  home,  from  Canada  to  the  Gulf  and 
eastward  from  the  Mississippi  to  the  Atlantic. 

A  good  string  may  also  be  made  by  twisting  the 
fiber  obtained  from  the  common  Keed-grass  {Phrag- 
mites  communis,  Trin.), — the  Carrizo  of  the  South- 
west,— whose  tall,  straight  canes  crowned  with  silky, 
plume-like  floral  panicles,  form  a  conspicuous 
feature  in  swamps  and  damp  places  throughout  the 
United  States  and  Canada.  At  a  distance  they 
present  the  general  appearance  of  Broom-corn.  A 
peculiarity  of  this  reed  that  excited  the  curiosity 
of  observant  explorers  half  a  century  or  so  ago, 
was  utilized  bv  some  of  the  Indian  tribes  to  minister 
to  their  taste  for  sugar.     Owing  to  the  attacks  of 

218 


MISCELLANEOUS  USES 

a  certain  insect,  which  i)uiictures  tlio  leafa<!:e,  a  pasty 
exudation  is  often  to  be  found  in  ahundancc  upon 
the  plants.  This,  upon  hardenin.i;  into  a  Kuni,  may 
be  collected,  and  has  a  sweet,  licorice-like  tnstc 
Palmer  records  a  former  practice  of  tlio  Indians  lo 
cut  the  canes  when  the  ^'um  was  sufficientlv  harckMied, 
lay  them  in  bundles  upon  ])lankets,  and  shake'  off 
the  sweet  particles.  The  sugar  thus  obtained  was 
usually  consumed  by  stirring  it  in  water,  makin.ic 
thus  a  sweet  and  nutritious  drink.  C^ovillr  speaks 
of  a  somewhat  different  practice  with  the  same  phmt 
by  the  Panamint  Indians  of  the  Mojave  Desert,  who 
would  dry  the  entire  reed,  grind  it  and  sift  out  tlie 
flour.  This,  which  would  be  moist  and  sticky  from 
the  inherent  sugar,  would  then  be  set  near  a  fire 
until  it  would  swell  and  brown,  when  it  would  be 
eaten  like  taffy ."^ 

Another  primitive  sort  of  sugar  harvest  may  be 
reaped  in  a  small  way  from  the  common  Milkweed 
{Asclepias  Sijriaca).  Kalm,  among  otliers,  lias 
noted  this.  The  process  as  observed  by  him  was  to 
gather  the  flowers  in  the  morning  while  the  dew- 
was  on  them.  The  dew,  expressed  and  ])oiled, 
yielded  a  palatable  brow^n  sugar.  Sueh  a  dainty 
sort  of  manufacture  seems  fitting  emnigh  in   I'niry 

*  The  American  Anthropologist,  Oct.,   18'J2. 

219 


USEFUL  WILD  PLANTS 

economics;  but  it  is  hard  to  believe  it  to  have  been 
of  much  practical  value  among  the  rough  pioneers 
from  whom  the  old  Swedish  traveler  learned  of  it. 
The  Sugar  Pine  {Pinus  Lamhertiana,  Dough),  that 
noblest  of  Pacific  Coast  pines,  owes  its  common  name 
to  a  sugary  exudation  from  the  heart-wood  when  the 
tree  has  been  cut  into  with  an  ax  or  been  damaged 
by  fire.  The  bleeding  sap  forms  irregular  lumps  and 
nuggets,  white  when  fresh  and  unstained,  but  more 
often  found  brown  from  exposure  and  contact  mth 
fire.  John  Muir  thought  this  sugar  the  best  of 
sweets.  As  to  that,  each  must  be  his  own  judge; 
but  it  certainly  has  an  appeal  to  many.  Moderation 
should  be  exercised  in  its  consumption,  as  it  has  a 
decided  laxative  tendency.  Of  all  ^'wild  sugars,'^ 
however,  the  sap  of  the  Sugar  Maple,  the  source 
of  commercial  maple  sugar,  is  without  a  peer.  It 
is  too  well  known  to  call  for  more  than  mention 
here. 

Our  wild  plants  that  have  been  experimented  upon 
for  dyes  by  the  color-loving  Indians  are  very 
numerous.  The  subject  is  too  technical  for  me  to 
say  just  what  value  these  various  vegetable  dyes 
may  have  in  the  arts  of  civilization,  but  I  may  refer 
briefly  to  a  few. 

Imprimis,  there  is  that  familiar  hedge-plant,  the 

220 


MISCELLANEOUS  I'SES 

Osage  Orange  {Madura  auranilaca,  Xutt.).  Its 
native  home  is  in  tlie  rich  bottdm-lniuls  of  a  com- 
paratively narrow  strip  of  territory  extending  from 
eastern  Kansas  and  Missonri  through  Ai-kansas  to 
Texas,  attaining  in  all  that  region  ar1)()real  pr()])()r- 
tions.  It  is  distinguished  by  its  curious,  yellowish- 
green,  rough-skinned,  milky,  but  inedibh*  fruits, 
somewhat  resembling  lialf-ripe  oranges.  The  large 
roots  and  the  heartwood  of  the  tree  are  liright  orange 
in  color,  and  from  the  former  has  been  extracted  a 
yellow  dyestuff,  which  has  been  pronounced  com- 
parable in  excellence  to  fustic,  the  product  of  an 
allied  tree  of  the  tropics.  The  elastic,  satiny  wood 
was  a  favorite  material  for  bows  among  the  Indians,^ 
and  the  tree  came  to  be  known  accordingly  by  tlie 
French-Louisianians  as  Bois  d'arc.  A  curious  use 
of  the  milky  juice  of  the  ^* oranges"  is  recorded  l)y 
Dr.  James  of  the  Long  expedition,  the  members  of 
which  resorted  to  smearing  themselves  with  it  as  a 
protection  from  the  torment  of  wood-ticks. 

From  Kentucky  to  North  Carolina,  the  beautiful 
Kentucky  Yellow-wood  {Cladasfris  fincforia,  Kaf.) 
is   indigenous,   a   smooth-barked   tree   with    pinnate 

5  'The  price  of  a  bow  made  from  this  wood,  at  tlic  Aricaras', 
is  a  horse  and  blanket."  John  liradbur\  "s  "Travels  in  the  Interior 
of  America."  1809-11.  But  the  Aricaras  lived  a  thousand  miles 
from  where  the  Osage  Orange  grows. 

221 


USEFUL  WILD  PLANTS 

leaves  and  showy  panicles  of  fragrant,  white,  pea- 
like blossoms,  pendent  in  June  from  the  branch  ends. 
It,  too,  has  yellow  wood,  as  the  common  name  im- 
plies, and  from  it  a  clear  satfron  dye  may  be  had. 
Better  kno\\ni  is  the  Quercitron  or  Dyer's  Oak 
(Bartram's  Quercus  thwtoria),  which  has  played  a 
part  in  international  commerce.  The  inner  bark, 
w^hich  is  orange-colored,  yields  a  fine  yellow  dye,  and 
was  once  an  important  article  of  export  to  Europe, 
where  it  was  employed  in  the  printing  of  calicos. 
The  tree  is  indigenous  in  poor  soil  throughout  a  large 
part  of  the  eastern  United  States,  and  by  some  bot- 
anists is  regarded  as  but  a  variety  of  the  Scarlet  Oak 
(Quercus  coccinea,  Wang.),  whose  foliage  is  a  fiery 
contributor  to  the  autumn  coloring  of  our  forests. 

Nature's  fondness  for  vellow  is  manifested  in  her 
gift  of  many  dyes  of  this  cheerful  color,  utilized  by 
her  red  children.  The  common  Wild  Sunflower 
(HeliantJius  annuus,  L.)  and  the  flower  heads  of  the 
rank-smelling  Babbit-brush  {Chrysotliamnus  nause- 
osus  [Pursh.]  Britt.) — this  latter  one  the  commonest 
shrubs  of  the  Far  Western  plains  and  deserts,  with 
rayless  flat-topped  clusters  of  yellow  flowers  and 
W'itli  linear  leaves — have  long  yielded  a  yellow  stain 
to  the  Indians,  who  transmute  the  gold  of  the  blos- 
soms into  liquidity  by  the  process  of  boiling.     An- 

222 


MISCELLANEOUS  USES 

other  mine  of  color  is  Sliruli-ycllow-root  (Xantlior- 
rli'iza  apiifoUd,  L.Hor.),  a  low,  slini])l)y  plant  of  the 
Buttercup  family,  witli  ])in]iato  l(>avos  clustorod  at 
the  top  of  a  short  stem,  and  small,  brownish-yellow 
flowers  in  drooping,  slender  raci'mcs  appear! iilc  in 
April  or  May,  in  woods  and  on  shady  banks  of 
mountain  streams  from  New  York  to  Florida.  The 
bark  and  roots  are  richly  yellow,  and  I'roin  flie  latttT 
the  dve  was  customarily  extracted.  The  baik  and 
roots,  too,  of  some  of  the  Barberries  (notably  the 
western  Berheris  Fremontii,  Torr.)  yield  a  yellow 
dye,  of  which  the  Navajos  used  to  be  fond  as  a  color 
for  their  buckskins.  Equally  in  aboriginal  favor 
as  a  source  of  yellow  was  the  nearly  related  Golden 
Seal  {Hydrastis  Canadensis,  L.),  the  thick,  orange- 
colored  rootstock  being  used.  Tt  occurs  in  rieli 
woods  from  the  Canadian  ])order  to  Arkansas  and 
Georgia — a  low  herb,  with  a  hairy  stem  t\\(»-lea\-ed 
near  the  summit  which  bears  a  single,  greenish-white 
flower.     It  is  sometimes  called  \'ellow  Puecoon.'"' 

Puccoon  is  a  word  of  Indian  origin,  and  has  been 
applied  to  other  plants  as  well.  One  of  these,  the 
Bed  Puccoon,  is  more  commonly  known  as  IMood- 
root    {Sanguinaria    Canadensis,    L.),    whose    hainl- 

6  The  root  is  also  the  source  of  tlic  oHicial  diu^'  Coldrn  seal, 
and  its  oollection  on  tliis  account  lias  caused  the  plant  to  become 
exteiminated  in  many  localities  where  it  was  once  common. 

223 


USEFUL  WILD  PLANTS 


some,  white  flowers  are  among  the  best  beloved  of 
the  woodland  posies  of  spring,  from  Manitoba  to 
Florida.     The  whole  plant  is  charged  with  a  bitter 

juice  of  a  reddish- 
orange  color,  and 
that  of  the  root- 
stock  was  used  by 
the  Indians  to  pro- 
duce a  bright  red 
coloring  matter 
with  which  they 
painted  their  bod- 
ies, and  also  col- 
ored articles  of 
native  manufac- 
ture, particularly 
baskets.  An- 
other Puccoon  is 
Lithospermum  ca- 
nescens,  Lehm.,  of 
the  botanists.  It 
is  a  rough-hairy 
herb  of  the  Bo- 
rage family  common  on  the  plains  of  the  West,  bear- 
ing rather  large,  salver-shaped  orange-yellow  flow- 
ers clustered  at  the   summit  of  foot-high  stems — 

224 


Puccoon 

(Lithosper'num  canescens) 


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MISCELLANEOUS  USES 

several  from  the  same  root.  This,  I  believe,  was 
the  most  famous  of  the  Puccoons  as  an  Iiulijui  color- 
source,  a  good  red  dye  being  extractable  from  tlie 
large  red  roots.  The  plant  sometimes  went  among 
the  whites  by  the  name  of  Alkanet,  bestowed,  doubt- 
less, because  of  its  cousinship  with  the  phmt  yield- 
ing the  famous  Old  World  dye  so  entitled.  The 
Borage  family,  indeed,  are  rather  rich  in  color  juices, 
and  some  will  stain  the  fingers  even  as  one  gathers 
the  flowers.  A  red  dye  was  also  got,  according  to 
Porcher,  from  the  fibrous  roots  of  the  Flowering 
Dogwood  and  the  kindred  Silk}^  Cornel  {Corniis 
sericea,  L.)  sometimes  called  Kinnikinnik.  Of  Kin- 
nikinnik,  more  in  a  page  or  two.  Anotlier  red  may 
be  extracted  from  the  roots  of  the  Wild  Madder 
(Galium  tinctorium,  L.),  a  smooth-stemmed,  peren- 
nial Bedstraw,  with  square  stems  and  rather  upright 
branches,  narrow  leaves  in  verticels  usually  of  four, 
and  small,  4-parted,  white  flowers,  found  in  damp 
shade  and  in  swampy  land  from  Canada  soutliward 
throughout  much  of  the  eastern  United  States. 
This  was  one  of  the  dyes  used  by  the  northern 
Indians  to  color  red  the  porcupine  quills,  which  en- 
tered so  largely  into  their  decorations;  and  French- 
Canadian  women,  according  to  Kalm,  employed  it 
under  the  name  of  tisavo  jaiine-rougc,  to  dye  cloth. 

225 


USEFUL  WILD  PLANTS 

A  dark  blue  dye  Peter  Kalm  found  in  vogue  among 
the  Pennsylvania  colonists,  derived  from  the  Eed  or 
Swamp  Maple    {Acer  ruhrum,  L.),  that  charming 


KiNNIKINNIK 

(Cornus  sericea) 


tree  whose  vivid  blossoms,  appearing  before  the 
leaves,  add  so  much  of  glory  to  the  early  spring 
landscapes  of  our  Atlantic  seaboard.     The  bark,  says 

226 


MISCELLANEOUS  USES 

Kalm,  is  first  boiled  in  water  and  before  the  stuff 
to  be  dyed  is  put  into  the  boiler,  ''some  copperas 
such  as  hatmakers  and  shoemakers  use,''  is  added. 
The  extraction  of  a  dark  brown  dve  from  the  inner 
bark  and  the  nut-rinds  of  the  Butternut  or  White 
Walnut  {Juglans  cinerea,  L.)  is  an  old  practice 
among  country-folk,  and  in  former  times  was  a  com- 
mon method  of  coloring  homespun  woollen  cloth- 
ing. Civil  War  veterans  will  not  yet  have  forgotten 
the  butternut  garments  in  which  so  many  of  the  Con- 
federates w^ere  clad  that  the  term  butternut  became  a 
svnonvm  for  a  soldier  of  the  Soutli.  The  various 
species  of  Alnus  or  Alder,  familiar  shrubs  (and,  on 
the  Pacific  Coast,  trees),  contain  in  the  bark  a  dye 
principle  of  value.  This,  in  some  cases,  colors  a 
brownish  yellow,  in  others  an  orange.  With  cop- 
jDcras  a  good  black  may  be  had.  Before  the  Lidians 
began  to  use  the  traders'  colors,  alder  dye  was  in  gen- 
eral use  among  some  tribes,  and  in  the  old  days  many 
an  alder  bush  met  its  death  tlirough  stripping  by 
artist-squaws  bent  on  color-getting.  The  bark, 
peeled  preferably  in  the  spring,  was  boiled  either 
fresh  or  dried,  until  the  water  became  thoroughly 
colored,  when  it  was  ready  to  receive  the   article 

to  be  treated. 

227 


USEFUL  WILD  PLANTS 

A  good  Indian  black  has  been  got  from  the  mal- 
odorous Rocky  Mountain  Bee-plant  or  Pink  Spider- 
fiower  {Cleome  serrulata,  Pursh.),  familiar  to  every 
traveler  on  our  western  plains,  and  conspicuous  for 
its  shoAvy  racemes  of  pink,  long-stamened  flowers, 
mingled  with  long-stalked,  slender,  outstretched  seed- 
pods.  Certain  of  the  Pueblo  Indians  of  New 
Mexico  (where  the  plant  is  known  among  the 
Spanish-speaking  population  as  guaco)  have  habitu- 
ally relied  upon  it  for  the  black  decoration  of  their 
pottery.  The  plants  are  collected  in  summer,  boiled 
down  thoroughly,  and  the  thick,  black,  residual  fluid 
then  allowed  to  dry  and  harden  in  cakes.  Pieces 
of  this  are  soaked  in  hot  water,  when  needed  for 
paint."  The  desert  Indians  of  Southern  California 
used  to  obtain  a  yellowish-brown  dye  for  coloring 
deerskins  and  other  material  from  a  shrubby  plant 
of  the  Pea  tribe,  Dalea  Emoryi,  Gray,  bearing  small, 
terminal  clusters  of  tiny  pea-like  flowers,  staining 
the  fingers  when  pinched  and  exhaling  an  odd  but 
pleasant  fragrance.  The  branchlets  were  steeped  in 
water  to  release  the  color.  Another  desert  dye,  but 
black,  may  be  had  by  soaking  the  stems  of  Suecla 
suffrutescens,  Wats.,  a  somewhat  woody  plant  of  the 
Salt-bush    family,   with    small,    dark    green,   fleshy 

7  Harrington,  "Ethnobotany  of  the  Tewa  Indians." 

228 


MISCELLANEOUS  USES 

leaves,  found  in  alkaline  ground  from  California  to 
New  Mexico. 

People  who  have  an  aversion  to  Lady  Nicotine 
may  be  interested  in  certain  plants  useful  to  weaken 
the  eifect  of  tobacco  or  to  act  as  a  substitute.  Be- 
fore the  coming  of  the  white  man,  the  Indian  smoked 
principally  as  a  religious  rite,  as  an  offering  of  re- 
spect to  superiors,  or  to  cure  disease.  It  was  re- 
served for  the  white  man  to  make  of  the  practice 
a  purely  pleasurable  indulgence.  Moreover,  the 
smoking  material  of  pre-Columbian  days  within  the 
territory  of  the  present  United  States,  was  quite 
different  from  Twentieth  Century  commercial 
tobacco.  There  are  several  indigenous  species  of 
Nicotiana,  which  the  aboriginal  inhabitants  dried 
and  utilized,  and  in  some  instances  cultivated. 
Their  customary  ^' smoke,"  however,  was  not  pure 
tobacco,  but  a  combination  with  other  material;  and 
this  brings  us  again  to  Kinnikinnik,  mentioned  a 
little  while  ago.  This  word  is  an  Algonkian-Indian 
expression  signifying  a  mixture,  and  was  applied  by 
the  plainsmen,  trappers  and  settlers  in  the  Fur 
Trade  days  to  a  preparation  of  tobacco  with  the 
dried  leaves  or  bark  of  certain  plants.  Afterwards 
it  came  to  be  given  to  the  plants  themselves,  the 
most  important  of  which  are  these: 

229 


USEFUL  WILD  PLANTS 

The  Silky  Cornel  {Cornus  sericea,  L.) 
a  shrub  of  wet  situations,  with  purplish 
branches — these  and  the  underleaf  surfaces 
silky  with  hairs — and  flattish  clusters  of 
small  white  flowers  in  early  summer,  suc- 
ceeded in  autumn  by  pale  blue  berries ; 

The  Eed-osier  Dog^vood  {Cornus  stoloni- 
fera,  Michx.),  somewhat  similar  to  the 
above,  but  less  hairy  and  fewer-flowered, 
the  berries  whitish,  the  branches  smooth  and 
brightly  reddish,  the  plant  spreading  by 
running  suckers; 

The  Bear-berry  {Arctostaphylos  Uva- 
ursi,  Spreng.),  a  trailing,  evergreen  vine, 
with  little,  urn-shaped,  white  flowers  in 
spring,  and  crimson,  dryish,  astringent  ber- 
ries in  autumn,  affecting  rocky  or  sandy 
soil; 

The  Sumac,  especially  Rhus  glabra,  L., 
with  smooth,  pinnate  leaves  and  smooth 
twigs. 

In  the  case  of  the  first  two  plants,  the  scraped, 
inner  bark  w^as  the  part  availed  of;  in  that  of  the 
last  two,  the  leaves.  The  foliage  also  of  Manzanita 
and  Arrow-wood  (species  of  Vihiirniun)  sometimes 

230 


MISCELLANEOUS  USES 

found  favor.  The  ingredients  of  the  ''smoke"  were 
first  thoroughly  dried  either  in  the  sun  or  over  a 
fire,  and  then  rubbed  and  crunil)led  between  the 
palms  of  the  hands — whence  the  French  engages' 
name,  hois  roiile,  applied  to  such  smoking  material. 
Though  a  portion  of  tobacco  was  usual  in  the  make- 
up, it  frequently  was  omitted — one  or  more  of  the 
non-narcotics  being  consumed  alone. 

When  our  attention  is  once  turned  to  utilizing 
what  is  growing  freely  around  us,  an  almost 
exhaustless  subject  of  remarkable  fascination  has 
been  started ;  and  the  folk  of  simple  habits  and  gifted 
with  some  ingenuity  find  Flora  a  ministrant  goddess 
of  very  varied  gifts.  There  is  almost  nothing  we 
can  ask  of  her  that  she  cannot  make  some  sort  of 
response  to.  Lovers  of  the  curious  maj^  have  napkin 
rings  or  candle-sticks  from  sections  of  the  reticulated 
wooden  skeleton  of  the  savage  Cholla  Cactus;  com- 
bination brushes  for  sweeping  the  floor  or  brushing 
the  hair  (according  to  the  end  used)  from  certain 
western  grasses;^  combs  of  pine-cones;  buttons  of 
acorn-cups;   tooth-brushes   of   the   Flowering   Dog- 

8  One,  given  me  by  a  Zufii  Indian,  is  a  simple  bunch  of  MuJtIcn- 
hergia  jninfjens,  Thurl).,  tied  about  with  a  string,  the  butt-end 
charred  to  serve  for  tlic  liairbrush,  the  otlier  doing  duly  as  a 
whisk.  Harrington  states  tliat  among  the  Tewa  of  New  Mexico  and 
Arizona,  the  pUint  used  for  this  double  purpose  is  the  Mesquite- 
grass    {Boutcloua  curtipcndula,  Torr.). 

231 


USEFUL  WILD  PLANTS 

wood's  peeled  twigs,  highly  recommended  in  old 
times  for  their  whitening  effect  when  rubbed  upon 
the  teeth. 

Certain  plants  may  even  be  made  to  yield  salt,  by 
being  burned  to  ashes.  One  such  is  the  Sweet  Colts- 
foot (Petasites  palmata,  Gray),  a  perennial  herb 
of  the  Composite  tribe,  having  large,  rounded,  deeply 
fingered  leaves,  all  basal,  white-woolly  beneath  and 
from  six  to  ten  inches  broad  when  full  grown,  the 
whitish,  fragrant  flower-heads  tubular  or  short 
rayed  and  clustered  at  the  top  of  a  stout,  scaly  stalk. 
The  plant  frequents  swamps  and  stream  borders 
from  Massachusetts  to  California  and  far  north- 
ward throughout  Canada.  To  some  Indian  tribes, 
the  ash  of  the  Sweet  Coltsfoot  was  their  only  salt. 
Chesnut  states  that  the  method  of  preparation  ob- 
served by  him  was  to  roll  the  green  leaves  and  stems 
into  balls,  carefully  dry  them,  and  then  burn  them 
upon  a  very  small  fire  on  a  rock,  until  consumed. 

Then  there  are  adhesives.  Pine  pitch  naturally 
suggests  itself  for  this  purpose;  but  one  of  the  best 
cements  for  mending  broken  articles  mav  be  obtained 
from  the  branches  of  the  despised  Creosote  bush  of 
the  Southwestern  deserts  {Larrea  Mexicana,  already 
described).  This  gum  is  not  a  direct  vegetable 
exudation,  but  is  deposited  by  a  tiny,  parasitic  scale- 

232 


Sweet  Coltsfoot 
(Petasites  palmataj 


233 


USEFUL  WILD  PLANTS 

insect  in  small  reddish  masses  upon  the  twig-bark, 
from  which  it  is  readly  scraped.  The  Panamint 
Indians,  to  quote  Coville,  improve  its  effectiveness 
by  mixing  with  it  pulverized  rock,  and  pounding  all 
together.  The  product  is  warmed  before  applying. 
A  word  about  candles,  and  this  rambling  chapter 
mav  close.  A  common  source  of  wax  for  candle- 
making  in  old  times,  and  still  not  altogether  for- 
gotten, is  a  shrub  or  small  tree  indigenous  from 
Nova  Scotia  to  Florida  and  Alabama,  with  resinous, 
fragrant  leaves,  and  bluish-white,  waxen  berries, 
strung  upon  the  branches  and  persisting  through  the 
winter.  Modern  botanists  make  of  the  plants  two 
species — Myrica  cerifera,  L.,  and  M.  Carolinensis, 
IMill.  They  are  called  rather  indiscriminately  in 
common  speech,  Waxberry,  Bayberry,  or  Candle- 
berry.  The  little  round  berries  may  be  gathered  in 
the  autumn,  boiled  in  a  pot  of  water,  and  the  wax, 
which  floats  to  the  surface,  skimmed  off.  This  hard- 
ens into  a  cloudy  green  mass,  which,  Peter  Kalm  tells 
us,  it  was  customary  in  his  day  to  melt  over  again 
and  refine  into  a  transparent  green.  Candles  were 
moulded  from  this,  either  pure  or  mixed  with  some 
common  tallow.  Bayberry  wax  burns  with  a  rather 
pleasant  fragrance,  and  perhaps  you  have  found  such 
candles  among  your  Christmas  gifts. 

234 


CAXnLF.TJF-RnY 

(Myrica  CaroLineiisisJ 


235 


CHAPTER  XI 

A  CAUTIONARY  CHAPTER  ON  CERTAIN 
POISONOUS  PLANTS 

^'Within  the  infant  rind  of  this  weak  flower 
Poison  hath  residence." 

THERE  is  an  old  saying  about  mushrooms  to 
the  effect  that  the  way  to  test  their  edibility  is 
to  eat  a  few;  if  you  survive,  they  are  a  harmless 
kind;  if  you  die,  they  are  poisonous.  The  same 
cynic  rule  applies  to  wild  plants  in  general,  though 
with  much  greater  chance  for  survival  than  is  af- 
forded by  the  fungus  group,  since  the  number  of 
poisonous  flowering  plants  growing  wild  in  the 
United  States  is  relatively  small.  Nevertheless 
there  are  some  of  such  common  distribution  that  a 
brief  reference  to  a  few  of  these  that  might  deceive 
the  unwary  seems  desirable.^ 

Perhaps  the  plant  responsible  for  most  fatalities 

1  A  useful  monograph,  adequately  illustrated,  entitled  "Thirty 
Poisonous  Plants  of  the  United  States,"  by  V,  K.  Chesnut,  was 
issued  a  number  of  years  ago  by  the  U.  S.  Dept.  of  Agriculture, 
as  Farmers'  Bulletin  No.  80.  I  believe  it  is  now  out  of  print,  but 
copies  may  be  found  in  public  libraries. 

236 


CERTAIN  POISONOUS  PLANTS 

is  that  common  toadstool  appropriately  called  Death- 
cup  (Amanita  phalloides) ,  whose  resemblance  to  the 
edible  Agaric  or  Field  ^lushroom  {Afjariciis  cam- 
pestris)  causes  it  to  be  mistaken  for  the  latter  by  the 


•  ri 


Death  Cup 
(Amanita  phalloides) 

ignorant.  Any  one  who  has  not  had  practical  instruc- 
tion in  differentiating  edible  fungi  from  poisonous, 
would  best  leave  the  fungus  order  religiously  alone. 
Mushroom  gathering  is  a  business  for  experts. 

237 


Water  He^ilock 
(Cicuta  maculata) 


238 


CERTAIN  POISONOUS  PLANTS 

A  tribe  of  flowering  plants  that  includes  some  very 
dangerous  members  and  needs  to  be  treated  with 
caution,  is  the  Parsley  Family — the  scientists' 
UmheUiferae.  To  this  order  belongs  the  Water 
Hemlock  or  Cowbane  {Cicuta  maculata,  L.),  a  peren- 
nial of  marshy  grounds  and  stream  borders  from  the 
Atlantic  coast  westward  to  the  confines  of  the  Rocky 
Mountains.  It  grows  from  three  to  six  feet  high, 
with  stout,  erect  stems  blotched  or  streaked  longi- 
tudinally with  purple,  and  ample,  compound  leaves 
the  segments  of  which  are  usually  two  to  three  inches 
long,  lance-shaped  and  toothed.  A  peculiarity  of  the 
foliage  is  the  veining — the  veins  apparently  ending 
within  the  notches  instead  of  extending  to  the  tips 
of  the  teeth.  The  small  white  flowers,  appearing  in 
summer,  are  borne  at  the  branch  end  in  compound, 
long-stalked  umbels,  after  the  manner  of  parsley 
blossoms.  All  parts  of  the  plant  are  poisonous  if 
eaten,  producing  nausea  and  convulsions,  the  fleshy, 
tuberous  roots  being  especially  harmful.  These  are 
said  to  possess  an  agreeable,  aromatic  taste,  and  as 
they  are  often  found  exposed  through  the  wearing 
away  of  the  surrounding  earth  in  freshets,  they  con- 
stitute a  menace  to  inquisitive  children  and  browsing 
cattle.  Death  results  from  eating  them.  On  the 
Pacific  coast  two  or  three  species  of  Water  Hemlock 

239 


USEFUL  WILD  PLANTS 

occur,  also  inhabiting  marshy  places,  and  all  are 
possessed  of  the  same  deadly  properties. 

The  famous  Poison  Hemlock  of  Greek  history  and 
Macbeth ^s  witches  {Conium  maculatum,  L.) — the 
basis  of  the  death  potion  of  Socrates — is  also  a  mem- 
ber of  the  Parsley  family,  native  to  Europe  and  Asia 
but  now  extensively  naturalized  in  the  United  States 
in  waste  grounds  on  both  sides  of  the  continent.  It 
is  a  smooth,  hollow-stemmed,  much  branched,  bluish- 
green  biennial,  sometimes  as  high  as  a  tall  man,  but 
usually  much  lower,  with  large,  coarsely  dissected 
leaves,  the  leaf-stalks  dilated  at  the  base  and  sheath- 
ing. The  stems  are  often  spotted  with  dark  purple. 
The  small  white  flowers  appear  in  June  in  compound, 
many-rayed  umbels.  The  poisonous  principle — an 
alkaloid  called  conia  or  conine — is  permanently  resi- 
dent in  the  seeds  and  only  temporarily  in  other  parts 
of  the  plant.  According  to  Chesnut,  the  root  is 
nearly  harmless  in  March,  but  dangerous  if  consumed 
afterwards,  and  the  leaves  become  poisonous  at  the 
time  of  flowering.  The  effect  of  the  poison  is  a 
general  paralysis  of  the  system  until  death.  A  drug, 
conium,  prepared  from  the  plant,  is  a  powerful  seda- 
tive and  has  been  used  medicinally  as  a  substitute  for 
opium.2 

2  One   wonders  why   hemlock,   which   we   associate  with   a   forest 

240 


"Y^ 


Butternut  (Jiiglois  c'uicrca).  The  bark  is  the  source  of  a 
dye  used  for  the  uniforms  of  Confederate  soldiers  during  the 
Civil  War.     (See  page  227.) 

(Courtesy  of  the  Bureau  of  American  Ethnology.) 


s^- 


Poison  Hemlock 
(Conium  macula  turn) 


241 


USEFUL  WILD  PLANTS 

Noxious  berries  that  sometimes  tempt  children  to 
their  sorrow  are  those  of  the  Moonseed  {Menisper- 
mum  Canadense,  L.),  so  called  because  of  the  curi- 
ous seeds,  which  are  shaped  like  a  crescent  or  horse- 
shoe. This  is  a  climbing  perennial  vine  of  fence 
rows  and  waterside  thickets,  indigenous  from  Canada 
to  Arkansas  and  Georgia.  The  large  leaves  are 
rather  wider  than  long  with  a  somewhat  heartshaped 
base.  The  small  greenish  flowers  are  scarcely  no- 
ticeable, but  the  vine  attracts  attention  in  autumn 
because  of  its  conspicuous  bunches  of  berries,  bluish- 
black  with  a  bloom,  which  look  so  much  like  chicken 
grapes  that  the  novice  may  mistake  them  for  these. 
Stories  of  poisoning  from  eating  wild  grapes  some- 
times get  into  the  newspapers,  and  are  traceable  to 
the  Moonseed,  whose  berries  are  poisonous-narcotic, 
a  character  of  the  family  to  which  the  vine  belongs. 
The  clustered,  black  berries  of  the  common  Night- 
shade {Solanum  nigrum,  L.),  a  naturalized  weed  of 
waste  places  everywhere,  are  also  a  tempting  sight, 
but  had  better  be  avoided ;  for  while  they  are  doubt- 
less harmless  when  thoroughly  ripe  (I  have  myself 

tree,  should  be  applied  to  an  herb.  According  to  Prior  in  "Popu- 
lar Names  of  British  Plants,"  the  term  was  originally  given  in  Eng- 
land to  any  of  the  Umhelliferae — the  word  being  degenerate  Anglo- 
Saxon  meaning  "straw  plant,"  because  of  the  dry,  hollow  stalks  that 
remain  after  flowering. 

242 


.......  '„f,*/f*\      \ 


MOONSEED 
(Alaiispermum  VanadcnseJ 


243 


USEFUL  WILD  PLANTS 

tremblingly  eaten  them  in  moderation),  they  are  said 
on  good  authority  to  be  poisonous  when  not  ripe, 
and  color  is  not  a  sure  guarantee  that  the  state  of 
safety  has  been  attained. 

So,  too,  the  crimson  berries  of  the  familiar  Poke- 
weed,  Pigeon-berry  or  Garget  {Phytolacca  decandra, 
L.)  should  be  kept  out  of  the  mouth,  in  spite  of  the 
fact  that  birds  devour  them  with  greediness.  The 
whole  plant  is  imbued  with  an  active  principle  that 
induces  vomiting  and  purging,  and  in  the  root  this 
is  so  virulent  that  it  has  been  known  to  cause  death. 
As  mentioned  in  a  previous  chapter,  when  preparing 
the  young  shoots  as  potherbs  two  waters  should  be 
used,  that  in  which  they  are  first  boiled  being  thro\\m 
away.  Another  familiar  weed,  the  Corn  Cockle 
(Agrostemma  Gitliago,  L.),  a  purple  flowered,  hairy 
foreigner  occurring  in  our  grain  fields,  harbors 
within  its  seeds  a  rank  poison.  Flour  in  which  a 
large  quantity  of  these  seeds  has  been  ground  may 
produce  fatal  results.  Cockle  seeds,  by  the  way,  are 
saponaceous  and  will  create  a  lather  if  shaken  up  well 
in  water. 

On  the  Pacific  slope,  in  the  country  of  the  Camas 
described  in  Chapter  II,  is  a  plant  of  the  Lily  tribe 
in  general  appearance  resembling  Camas  but  with  a 
bulb  that  is  poisonous.     It  is  realistically  knowni  as 

244 


CERTAIN  POISONOUS  PLANTS 

Death  Camas,  and  also  as  White  Camas  and  Lobelia. 
It  haunts  damp  meadows  and  streamsides,  and  is 
in  botanical  parlance  Zygadenus  veneniosus,  Wats. 
The  white  flowers  serve  to  distinguish  it  from  the 
blue  Camas,  which  otherwise  it  strongly  simulates. 
The  effect  of  eating*  the  Zygadenus  bulb  is  a  pro- 
found nausea  accompanied  by  vomiting.  'Mv.  Y.  V. 
Coville  records  a  crafty  practice  of  the  Klamath 
medicine  men,  who  would  sometimes  make  a  mixture 
of  tobacco,  dried  iris  root  and  Death  Camas,  and 
give  it  to  a  person  in  order  to  nauseate  him.  Then 
they  would  charge  the  victim  a  fee  to  make  him  well 
again ! 

A  poison  unsuspected  by  most  of  us  resides  in  the 
leaves  of  that  beautiful  evergreen  shrub,  the  Ameri- 
can Laurel  or  Calico-bush  {Kalmia  latifoliaj  L.), 
which  glorifies  with  its  white  and  pink  bloom  the 
spring  thickets  of  the  Atlantic  seaboard.  Man  has 
little  occasion  to  put  these  leaves  in  his  mouth,  but 
the  ill  effect  upon  cattle  and  sheep  has  been  often 
reported.  A  like  offender  is  the  Laurel's  little  rod- 
flowered  cousin,  the  Sheep-Laurel  or  Lambkill  [K. 
angustifolia,  L.).  Stock  may  also  suffer  fatally 
from  eating  the  wilted  foliage  of  the  Wild  Black 
Cherry  {Prunus  serotina,  a  tree  already  described, 
with    clusters    of    edible,    small,    black,    somewhat 

245 


USEFUL  WILD  PLANTS 


astringent  fruit).  The  most  dreaded  of  cattle- 
poisons,  however,  particularly  on  the  Western 
ranges,  is  probably  the  so-called  Loco-weed,  a  term 
applied  to  several  species  of  Astragalus — especially 
A.  mollissimus,  Torr.,  distinguished  by  purple  flow- 
ers and  densely  hairy  foliage.     The  genus  is  of  the 


Loco-weed 

(Astragalus  mollissimus) 

246 


CERTAIN  POISONOUS  PLANTS 

Pea  family,  and  is  a  very  large  one,  widely  dis- 
tributed. There  are  nearly  two  hundred  American 
species,  mostly  western — herbaceous  plants  with  odd- 
pinnate  leaves,  spikes  or  racemes  of  usually  small, 
narrow  flowers  generally  produced  from  the  leaf- 
axils,  the  seed  pods  mostly  bladdery  or  swollen. 
These,  wdien  dry,  have  a  habit  of  rustling  noticeably 
in  a  passing  breeze,  whence  another  common  name, 
Eattleweed.  Astragalus  is  often  abundant  where 
horses  and  cattle  graze,  and  certain  species  have  been 
found  to  create  serious  trouble  with  animals  that  eat 
the  herbage.  They  become  afflicted  with  a  sort  of 
insanity,  or  as  the  Westerners  say,  they  are 
''locoed,^'"  the  victims  of  a  slow  poisoning.  The 
eyesight  grows  defective,  the  movements  are  spas- 
modic and  irrational,  then  sluggish  and  feeble,  the 
coat  becomes  disheveled  and  dull  of  color,  emacia- 
tion sets  in,  and  finally  after  a  few  months  or  it  may 
be  a  year  or  two,  death  comes.  It  \vas  at  one  time 
thought  that  the  poisoning  was  not  of  the  plant  itself 
but  due  to  the  presence  of  the  metal  barium  which 
the  plant  drew  into  its  system  from  the  soil,  but  this 
theory  is  now  abandoned. 

A  dangerously  poisonous  weed  is  the  Jinison  or 
Thorn-apple  {Datura  Stramoninm,  L.),  whose  large 

3  Spanish  loco,  crazy,  foolish. 

247 


USEFUL  WILD  PLANTS 

funnel- shaped,  white  or  violet  flowers  and  thorny 
seed-vessels  adorning  ill-smelling,  branching  plants, 


JiMSON-WEED 

(Datura  ^Stramonium) 


i 


i 


are  familiar  sights  in  fields  and  waste  grounds  from 
the  Mississippi  eastward  and  from  Canada  to  the 
Gulf.     The  whole  plant  and  particularly  the  seeds 

248 


[  CERTAIN  POISONOUS  PLANTS 

are  possessed  of  a  virulent  narcotic  poison,  which 
taken  into  the  human  body  produces  vertigo,  nausea, 
delirium  and  a  general  anarchy  of  the  nervous  sys- 
tem. In  that  quaint  old  work,  ^'History  and  Present 
State  of  Virginia"  (1705),  by  Robert  Beverly,  the 
author  gives  a  curious  account  of  what  happened  to 
some  soldiers  who  made  a  boiled  dish  of  the  early 
shoots  of  the  plant,  supposing  them  to  be  edible  pot- 
herbs. "Some  of  them  eat  plentifully  of  it,"  writes 
Master  Beverly,  "the  Effect  of  which  was  a  very 
pleasant  Comedy;  for  they  turn'd  natural  Fools  upon 
it  for  several  Days:  One  would  blow  up  a  Feather 
in  the  Air;  another  would  dart  Straws  at  it  with 
much  Fury;  another,  stark  naked,  was  sitting  in  a 
Corner,  like  a  Monkey,  grinning  and  making  mows 
at  them;  a  Fourth  would  fondly  kiss  and  paw  his 
Companions  and  snear  in  their  Faces  with  a  Coun- 
tenance more  antick  than  any  Dutch  Droll.  ...  A 
thousand  such  simple  Tricks  they  play'd,  and  after 
Eleven  Days,  return 'd  to  themselves  again,  not  re- 
membering anything  that  had  pass'd.""* 

There  are  several  species  of  Datura  indigenous 
within  our  limits,  all  resembling  one  another  in  gen- 
eral look  and  all  poisonous.     On  the  Pacific  Slope, 

4  Beverly  calls  the  plant  James  Town  weed,  which  seems  to  have 
been  the  original  term,  now  corrupted  to  Jimson. 

249 


USEFUL  WILD  PLANTS 

the  commonest  species  is  D.  meteloides,  DC,  called 
toloacJie  by  Mexicans  and  Indians.  This,  like  sev- 
eral species  of  Spanish  America,  has  played  a  note- 
worthy jDart  in  the  ceremonial  life  of  our  aborigines. 
An  infusion  of  the  plant  was  customarily  adminis- 
tered in  certain  rites,  as  those  of  puberty;  and  it 
was  a  druof  commonlv  resorted  to  bv  medicine  men 
to  induce  a  hypnotic  state  or  a  condition  evocative 
of  prophecy.  Only  a  little  while  ago  a  California 
Lidian  expressed  to  me  his  faith  in  the  power  of 
toloacJie  to  unravel  mysteries  and  reveal  the  where- 
abouts of  lost  animals.  The  likelihood  of  death  from 
overindulgence  makes  its  employment  risky,  and  it 
is  nowadays  comparatively  neglected.  Among  the 
New  Mexico  Zuiiis,  the  blossom  of  this  Datura  is  a 
sacred  flower,  and  a  representation  of  it  figures  as 
an  adornment  of  the  women  in  some  of  their  dances. 
Mrs.  Stevenson  in  her  '^Ethnobotany  of  the  Zufii 
Indians,"  ^  records  a  legend  about  this  flower  worthy 
of  Ovid.  It  seems  that  long,  long  ago  while  the  Zuhis 
still  dwelt  in  the  underworld,  a  boy  and  a  girl, 
brother  and  sister,  found  a  way  up  into  this  world  of 
light,  and  would  take  long  walks  upon  the  earth, 
wearing  upon  their  heads  Datura  flowers.  And  so 
they  learned  many  wonderful  things,  and  had  many 

5  30th  Ann.  Rept.  Bureau  of  American  Ethnology. 

250 


CERTAIN  POISONOUS  PLANTS 

interesting  adventures.  One  day  they  met  the 
Divine  Ones,  the  Twin  Sons  of  the  Sun  Father,  to 
whom,  child-like,  they  prattled  of  what  they  had 
found  out — how  they  could  make  people  sleep  and  see 
ghosts,  and  how  they  could  make  others  walk  about 
and  see  who  it  was  that  had  stolen  something. 
Thereupon  the  Divine  Ones  decided  that  this  little 
couple  knew  altogether  too  much,  and  should  be 
made  away  with.  So  they  caused  the  brother  and 
sister  to  disappear  into  the  earth  forever;  and 
where  they  sank  down  flowers  sprang  up,  the  counter- 
part of  those  that  the  children  had  worn  upon  their 
heads.  The  gods  called  the  flowers  by  the  name  of 
the  boy,  Aneglakya ;  and  by  that  term  the  Zuiiis 
know  them  to  this  day,  for  the  flowers  had  many 
children  and  we  find  them  throughout  the  land. 

In  western  Texas  and  southern  New  Mexico,  rang- 
ing across  the  frontier  down  into  Old  Mexico,  there 
grows  a  handsome  shrub  of  the  Pea  family,  with 
glossy,  odd-pinnate,  evergreen  leaves  of  leathery 
texture,  and  one  sided  racemes  of  papilionaceous, 
violet-colored  flowers,  succeeded  by  long  pods  that 
contain  about  half  a  dozen  large  scarlet  bean-like 
seeds  apiece.  This  is  the  Red  Bean,  Mescal  Bean, 
or  as  the  Spanish-speaking  population  call  it,  Fri- 
jolillo,  which  means   the   "little   pink   bean."     To 

251 


USEFUL  WILD  PLANTS 

botanists  it  is  Broussonetia  secundiflora,  Ort.,  or 
Sophora  seciuidiflora,  Lag.  The  seeds  contain  a 
narcotic  poison  tliat  makes  them  dangerous  particu- 
larly to  children,  who  are  likely  to  be  attracted  by 
the  brilliant  color.  The  crushed  seeds  have  been 
used  from  very  early  times  by  the  Indians,  who,  it 
is  reported,  could  make  themselves  deliriously  drunk 
on  half  a  bean,  and  sleep  two  or  three  days  on  top 
of  it,  while  a  whole  bean  Avould  kill  a  man.  Among 
some  tribes,  as  the  lowas,  there  were  religious  rites 
connected  with  the  Eed  Bean,  and  a  society  was 
founded  upon  it. 

To-day  one  hears  little  of  the  Ked  Bean  Society, 
but  the  cult  of  another  dangerous  vegetable  poison 
of  the  Southwest  is  still  active.  This  is  the  so-called 
Sacred  Mushroom,  Mescal-button,  Dry  Whisky, 
Peyote,  or  Raiz  diaholica  (deviPs  root) — names 
given  in  common  speech  to  a  small  cactus,  Loplio- 
pJiora  Williamsii,  whose  use  has  become  a  rather 
desolating  factor  among  the  present-day  Eeservation 
Indians  of  the  United  States.  Some  of  these,  it  ap- 
pears, maintain  a  regularly  organized  association 
called  the  Sacred  Peyote  Society  with  a  form  of 
baptism  *'in  the  name  of  the  Father,  and  the  Son 
and  the  Holy  Ghost,"  the  Holy  Ghost  being  Peyote !  ^ 

« Quoted  by  W.  E.   SaflFord,   "^^arcotic   Plants  and  Stimulants  of 

252 


CERTAIN  POISONOUS  PLANTS 

The  cactus  is  indigenous  to  the  arid  regions  border- 
ing on  the  lower  Rio  Grande  both  in  the  United 
States  and  Mexico.  It 
resembles  a  carrot  in 
shape,  and  the  entire 
plant,  except  about  an 
inch  at  the  top,  grows 
underground.  This  top 
is  flat  and  round,  two  to 
three  inches  across,  and 
wrinkled  with  radiating 
ribs.  There  are  no 
spines  but  numerous 
tufts  of  silkv  hairs,  amid 
which  pink  blossoms  are 
borne  in  season.  The 
chemical  properties  em- 
brace three  alkaloids 
whose  effect  is  power- 
fully narcotic  and  delir- 
iant,  in  some  respects  re- 
sembling opium.  Lum- 
holtz,  in  his  "Unknown 
Mexico,''  gives  an  inter- 


Mescal-button 
(Lophophora  ^Vill^amsU) 


the    Ancient    Americans,"    in    Ann.    Kept.    Smithsonian    Institution, 
1916. 


253 


USEFUL  WILD  PLANTS 

esting  account  of  the  superstitious  reverence  ac- 
corded by  the  Tarahumar  Indians  of  Chihuahua  to- 
wards this  plant,  which  in  their  language  is  called 
hikuli.  They  treat  it  as  a  divinity  and  Lumholtz 
was  required  to  lift  his  hat  in  the  presence  of  the 
dried  ^^ buttons."  Catholicized  Tarahumares  make 
the  sign  of  the  cross  before  it;  and  it  is  regarded 
as  a  safeguard  against  witches  and  ill  fortune.  It 
is  claimed  that  its  use  takes  away  the  craving  for 
alcohol,  which  may  be  true ;  but  it  substitutes  an- 
other, and,  between  Scylla  and  Charybdis,  what  is 
the  choice? 

The  poisonous  effect  of  a  few  native  species  of 
Rhus  upon  the  skin  of  many  persons  is  well  known. 
On  the  Atlantic  slope  the  species  whose  caustic 
juices  possess  this  property  are  the  Swamp  Sumac 
(Rhus  venenata,  DC.)  and  the  Poison  Ivy  {R.  Toxi- 
codendron, L.).  The  former  is  a  graceful  shrub  or 
small  tree  of  swampy  situations,  the  smooth  leaves 
compound  with  leaflets  abruptly  pointed  and  with 
entire  margins.  They  turn  in  the  autumn  a  brilliant 
red,  very  seductive  to  the  gatherers  of  autumn  foli- 
age. The  panicles  of  greenish  flowers,  produced 
from  the  axils  of  the  leaves,  are  followed  by  grayish 
white  berries.  The  plant  is  also  called  Poison 
Sumac    and,    less    correctly.    Poison    Elder.     The 

254 


Swamp  Sumac 
(Rhus  venenata) 


255 


USEFUL  WILD  PLANTS 

Poison  Ivy  is  very  variable  in  habit,  either  a  low, 
upright  bush,  or  a  vine  climbing  by  aerial  rootlets 


Poison  Ivy 
(Rhus  Toxicodendron) 

over  fences  and  far  up  into  the  crowns  of  treesJ 
It   has   leaves    of   three    short-stalked   leaflets,  and 

7  Some  botanists  prefer  to  treat  Poison  Ivy  as  of  two  species — the 
climber  being  designated  Rhus  radicans. 

256 


CERTAIN  POISONOUS  PLANTS 

flowers  and  fruit  like  those  of  the  Swamp  Sumac. 
This  3-leaflet  arrangement  serves  to  distinguish  the 
plant  from  the  harmless  but  somewhat  similar  look- 
ing Virginia  Creeper  or  American  Ivy,  which  has 
leaves  of  five  parts.  On  the  Pacific  Slope,  the  rep- 
resentative poisonous  Elms  is  E.  diversiloha,  T.  &  G., 
commonly  called  Poison  Oak.  It  is  in  general 
appearance  like  the  eastern  Poison  Ivy,  either  bushy 
or  climbing,  but  the  leaflets  are  variously  lobed  and 
toothed,  suggesting  an  oak.  Among  popular  reme- 
dies in  California  for  Rhus  poisoning  is  a  strong 
decoction  made  by  boiling  the  leaves  of  the  ^lan- 
zanita,  applied  hot  and  repeatedly  to  the  affected 
parts.  The  historian  Bancroft  records  that  a 
Spanish  expedition  in  the  Southwest  early  in  the 
eighteenth  centur}^,  under  Governor  Valverde,  suf- 
fered greatly  from  Poison  Oak  and  found  relief  by 
chewing  chocolate  and  applying  the  saliva  to  the 
eruption.  Rather  a  pleasing  remedy,  on  the  whole, 
one  would  fancy;  and  I  am  glad  to  think  of  those 
old  campaigners  in  the  desert  having  that  little  taste 
of  sweet  in  the  bitterness  of  their  lot. 


257 


REGIONAL  INDEX 

(For  Page  Numbers  see  General  Index.) 

The  notation  (A)  after  a  plant  indicates  that  it  is  found  only 
in  the  Atlantic  States.  The  notation  (W)  after  a  plant  indicates 
that  it  is  found  only  west  of  the  Atlantic  States. 

East  of  the  Rocky  Mountains  (including  Mitldle 

and  Eastern  Canada) 

Food  Plants: 

Edible  Roots  and  Tubers: 

Arrowhead    (Sagittaria  variabilis) 

Chufa   (Cyperus  esculenta) 

Golden  Club    (Orontiura  aquaticum)   a 

Groundnut   (Apios  tuberosa) 

Indian  Bread-root  (Psoralea  esculenta)  w 

Jack-in-the-Pulpit    (Arisaema  tripliylhim) 

Jerusalem  Artichoke  (Helianthus  tuberosus)   w 

Man-of-the-earth   (Ipomoea  pandurata) 

Spring-  Beauty    (Claytonia  Virginica) 

Virginia  Tuckaho  (Peltandra  Virginica) 

Water  Chinquapin   (Nelumbo  lutea) 

Wild  Onion  (Allium  tricoccum) 

Edible  Seeds: 

Beechnut   (Fagus  Americana) 
Chestnut  (Castanea  dentata) 
Chinquapin   (Castanea  pumila) 
Golden  Club   (Orontiuni  aquaticum) 
Groimdnut    {Ai)ios  tuberosa) 
Hickory   (Hicoria  sp.) 

259 


REGIONAL  INDEX 

Hog  Peanut  (Ampliicarpaea  monoica) 
Sunflower  (Helianthus  annuus  sp.)  w 
Walnut    (Juglans  sp.) 
Water  Chinquapin  (Nelumbo  lutea) 
Wild  Rice    (Zizania  aquatica) 

Edible  Fruits  and  Berries: 

Barberry    (Berberis  sp.) 

Blackberry  (Rubus  sp.) 

Buffalo-beny     (Shepberdia    argentea)     w 

CranbeiTy    (Oxycoccus  sp.) 

Currant  (Ribes  sp.) 

Gooseberry   (Ribes  sp.) 

Grape  (Vitis  sp.) 

Ground   Cherry    (Physalis  sp.) 

Hawthorn  (Crataegus  sp.) 

Huckleberry   (Vaccinium  sp.) 

May  Apple  (Podophyllum  peltatum) 

Mulberry   (Morus  rubra) 

Papaw   (Asimina  triloba) 

Persimmon    '^Diospyros  Virginica) 

Raspberry   (Rubus  sp.) 

Service-berry    (Amelanchier  sp.) 

Strawberry    (Fragaria    sp.) 

Teaberry  (Gaultheria  proeumbens) 

Edible  Stems  or  Leaves: 

Bracken    (Pteris  aquilina) 
Chicory   (Cichorium  Intybus) 
Dandelion  (Taraxacum  officinale) 
Dock   (Rumex  crispus) 
Lamb's  quarters    (Chenopodium  album) 
Milkweed  (Asclepias  sp.) 
Nettle  (Urtica  dioica) 
Pokeweed  (Phytolacca  decandra) 
Purslane   (Portulaca  oleracea) 
Water-cress   (Nasturtium  officinale) 
Winter  Cress  (Barbarea  vulgaris) 

260 


REGIONAL  INDEX 

BE^^RAGE  Plants: 

Birch   (Betula  sp.) 
Chicory  (Cichorium  Intybus) 
Goldenrod    (Solidago  odora)   a 
Hemlock-tree   (Tsiiga  Canadensis) 
Indian  Lemonade  (Rhus  Irilobata)  w 
Inkberry  (Ilex  glabra)  a 

Kentucky  Coffee-tree  (Gymnocladus  Canadensis) 

Labrador-tea   (Ledum  Groenlandicum) 

New  Jersey  tea  (Ceanothus  Americanus) 

Sassafras   (Sassafras  officinale) 

Spicewood  (Lindera  Benzoin) 

Winter-berry    (Ilex  verticillata) 

Wintergreen   (Gaultheria  procumbens) 

Soap-Plants  : 

Bouncing  Bet  (Saponaria  officinalis) 
Missouri  Gourd  (Cucurbita  f oetidissima )  w 
New  Jersey  tea   (Ceanothus  Americanus) 

Medicinal  Plants: 

American  Centaur}^  (Sabbatia  angularis) 
American  Pennyroyal  (Hedeoma  pulegioides) 
Boneset   (Eupatorium  perfoliatum) 
Dittany   (Cunila  Mariana) 
Dogwood    (Cornus  florida) 
Hoar-hound  (Marrubium  vulgare) 
Mustard  (Brassica  sp.) 
Sweet-flag  (Acorus  Calamus) 
Wild   Cherry    (Prunus  serotina) 
Wild  Senna  (Cassia  Marylandica) 
Yarrow  (Achillea  Millefolium) 

Fiber  Plants: 

Indian  Hemp    (Apocynum  cannabinum) 
Leatherwood   (Dirca  palustris) 
Milkweed   (Aselepias  sp.) 
Nettle  (Urtiea  sp.) 
Reed-grass   (Phragmites  communis) 

261 


REGIONAL  INDEX 

Dye-Plants  : 

Alder  (Alnus  sp.) 

Blood-root    (Sangiiinaria  Canadensis) 

Butternut   (Juglans  cinerea) 

Dogivood  (Cornus  florida) 

Golden  Seal  (Hydrastis  Canadensis) 

Osage  Orange    (Madura  aurantiaca)  w 

Puecoon  (Lithospermum  canescens) 

Quercitron  Oak   (Quercus  tinetoria) 

Red  Maple   (Acer  rubrum) 

Silky  Cornel  (Conius  sericea)  w 

Spider-flower  (Cleome  serrulata)  w 

Sunflower  (Heliantbus  annuus) 

Wild  Madder  (Galium  tinctorium) 

Tobacco  Admixtures: 

Arrow-wood   (Viburnum  sp.) 
Bearberry  (Arctostaphylos  Uva-ursi) 
Red  Osier  Dogwood    (Cornus  stolonifera) 
Silky  Cornel  (Cornus  sericea) 
Sumac  (Rhus  glabra) 

Salt- Substitute  : 

Sweet  Coltsfoot  (Petasites  palmata) 

Candle  Material  : 

Bayberry    (Myrica  sp.)  a 


Peculiar  Mainly  to  the  Southern  States 

Food  Plants: 

Edible  Roots  and  Tubers: 
Conte  (Smilax  Pseudo-China) 
Coontie  (Zamia  sp.) 
Florida  Arrowroot  (Zamia  sp.) 
Indian-bread   (Pacbyma  cocos) 

262 


i 
I 


REGIONAL  INDEX 

Edible  Fruits: 

May-pop   (Passiflora  inearnata) 
Summer  Haw  (Crataegus  llava) 

Edible  Stems  or  Leaves: 

Cabbage  Palmetto  (Sabal  Palmetto) 
Scurvy  Grass  (Barbarea  praecox) 

Beverage  Plants: 

Cassena  (Ilex  vomitoria) 

Soap-Plants  : 

Soap-berry    (Sapindus  sp.) 
Southern  Buckeye  (Aesculus  Pavia) 

Dye-Plants  : 

Kentucky  Yellow-wood  (Cladastris  tiiictoria) 
Shrub-Yellow-root  (Xanthorrhiza  apiifolia) 

The  Pacific  Slope 

Food  Plants: 

Edible  Roots  and  Tubers: 

AiTowhead  (Sagittaria  variabilis) 

Biscuit-root    (Peucedanum   sp.) 

Bitter-root   (Lewisia  rediviva) 

Camas   (Camassia  esculenta) 

Chufa   (Cyperus  esculentus) 

Harvest  Brodiaea  (Brodiaea  grandiflora)  ^ 

Indian  Potatoes  (Calocliortus  sp.,  Camassia  sp.,  Brodiaea  sp., 

etc.) 
Sego  Lily  (Calocbortus  Nuttallii) 
Tule  (Scirpus  lacustris) 
Wild  Anise  (Carum  Kelloggii) 
Wild  Onion  (Brodiaea  eapitata) 
Yamp    (Carum  Gairdneri) 

Edible  Seeds: 

Buckeye  (Aesculus  Calif omicus) 

Chia  (Salvia  sp.) 

263 


REGIONAL  INDEX 

Chinquapin   (Castanopsis  chrysophylla) 

Goosefoot    ( Cbenopodium  sp.) 

Islay   (Prunus  ilicifolia) 

Oak    (Quercus  sp.) 

Pine   (Pinus  sp.) 

Pond-lily    (Nupliar  polysepalum) 

Sunflower  (Heliantbus  annuus) 

Tarweed  (Madia  sativa) 

Walnut  (Jugians  Calif ornica) 

White  Sage   (Audibertia  polystacbya) 

Wild  Oats   (Avena  fatua) 

Wild  Wheat  (Elymus  triticoides) 

Edible  Fruits  and  Berries: 

Black  Haw  (Crataegus  Douglasii) 

Buckthorn   (Rhamnus  crocea) 

Cranberry   (Oxycoccus  sp.) 

Currant    (Ribes  aureum) 

Grape   (Yitis  Calif  ornica) 

Huckleberry   (Vaccinium  sp.) 

Manzanita    (Arctostaphylos  sp.) 

Oregon  Grape   (Berberis  aquifolium) 

Raspberry    (Salmon-berry,    Thimbleberry)     (Rubus   sp.) 

Salal  (Gaultheria  Shallon) 

Service-berry  ( Amelanchier  sp.) 

Strawberry  (Fragaria  sp.) 

Tuna  (Opuntia  si3.) 

Edible  Stems  or  Leaves: 

Bracken   (Pteris  aquilina) 

Clover    (Trifolium) 

Miner's  Lettuce  (Montia  perfoliata) 

Purslane   (Portulaca  oleracea) 

Red  Maids   (Calandrinia  caulescens  Menziesii) 

Water-cress   (Nasturtium  officinale) 

Wild  Pie-plant   (Rumex  hymenosepalus) 

Beverage  Plants: 
Chia   (Salvia  sp.) 

264 


REGIONAL  INDEX 

Douglas  Spruce   (Psendotsuga  taxifolia) 
Lemonade-beiTy   (Rhus  sp.) 
Manzanita   (Aretostaphylos  sp.) 
Yerba  buena   (Micromeria  Douglasii) 

Soap-Plants  : 

Amole  ( Chloragalum  pomeridianum) 
Mock  Orange  (Cucurbita  foetidissima) 
Soap-plant   (Chlorogalum  ponieridianum) 
Soap-root    (Chenopodium  Calif ornicum) 
Wild  Lilac   (Ceanotlius  sp.) 

Medicinal   Plants  : 

California  Laurel   (Umbellularia  Calif ornica) 
Canchalagua   (Ei^thraea  venusta) 
Cascara  sagrada   (Rhamnus  Calif  ornica) 
Gum-plant   (Grindelia  sp.) 
Hoar-hound   (Marrubium  vulgare) 
Mastransia   (Stachys  Californica) 
Mustard  (Brassica  sp.) 
Quinine-bush  (Garrya  elliptica) 
Western  Dogwood  (Cornus  Nuttallii) 
Yarrow  (Achillea  Millifolium) 
Yerba  mansa  (Anemopsis  Californica) 
Yerba  santa  (Eriodictyon  glutinosum) 

Fish  Poisons: 

Soap-root  (Chloragalum  pomeridianum) 
Turkey  Mullein   (Croton  setigerus) 

Fiber  Plants: 

Indian  Hemp  (ApocjTium  cannabinum) 
Milkweed  (Asclepias  eriocarpa) 
Psoralea   (Psoralea  maerostachya) 

Dye  Plants: 

Alder   (Alnus  sp.) 
Sunflower  (Helianthus  annuus) 

265 


REGIONAL  INDEX 

Tobacco  Admixtuke: 

Manzanita   (Arctostaphylos  sp.) 

Salt  Substitute: 

Sweet  Coltsfoot  (Petasites  palmata) 

The  Southwest  (Mainly  in  Arid  Eegions) 

Food  Plants: 

Edible  Roots  and  Tubers: 
Sand-food  (Ammobroma  Sonorae) 
Wild  potato    (Solanum  sp.) 

Edible  Seeds: 

Amaranth   (Amarantbus  blitoides) 

Cilia  (Salvia  sp.) 

Goosefoot    (Cbenopodium  leptopbyllum) 

Indian  Millet   (Eriocoma  cuspidata) 

Jojoba   (Simmondsia  Calif ornica) 

Juniper  (Juiiiperus  sp.) 

Pifion   (Pinus  sp.) 

Salt-bush   (Atriplex  sp.) 

Song-wal  (Panicum  Urvilleanum) 

Edible  Fruits  and  Berries: 

Cactus  (Opuntia  sp.) 

California  Fan-palm   (Washingtonia  filifera  robusta) 

Mesquit   (Prosopis  juliflora) 

Sahuaro    (Cereus  giganteus) 

Screw-bean  (Prosopis  pubescens) 

Tomate  del  eampo  (Physalis  longifolia) 

Tomatillo    (Lycium  sp.) 

Yucca  (Yucca  sp.) 

Edible  Stems  or  Leaves: 
Bisnaga  (Echinocactus) 
Bledo  (Amarantbus  Palmeri) 
Cactus  (Opuntia  sp.) 

266 


REGIONAL  INDEX 

Desert  Trumpet  (Eriogonum  inflatum) 

Mescal  (Agave  sp.) 

Sotol    (Dasylirion  sp.) 

Spanish  Bayonet   (Yucca  Whipple!) 

Wild  Cabbage  (Caulanthus  crassifolius) 

Wild  Cabbage  (Stanleya  phniatifida) 

Wild  Rhubarb   (Rumex  hymenosepalus) 

Beverage  Plants: 

Barrel   Cactus    (Eehinocactus  sp.) 
Chaparral  Tea  (Croton  corymbulosus) 
Desert  Tea    (Ephedra  sp.) 
Jojoba  (Simmondsia  Calif ornica) 

ooap-Plants  : 

Amole   (Yucca  sp.) 
Calabasilla  (Cucurbita  foetidissima) 
Lechuguilla   (Agave  sp.) 
Soap-berry   (Saj^indus  Drummondii) 

Medicinal   Plants  : 

Creosote-bush  (Larrea  Mexicana) 
Y^erba  mansa   (Anemopsis  Calif  ornica) 

Fiber  Plants: 

Carrizo   (Phragmites  communis) 
Mescal  (Agave  sp.) 
Spanish  Dagger  (Yucca  sp.) 
Wild  Hemp  (Sesbania  macrocarpa) 

Dye  Plants: 

Barberry   (Berberis  Fremontii) 

Dalea  (Dalea  Emory i) 

Desert  Blite   (Suaeda  suffroitescens) 

Guaco    (Cleome  serrulata) 

Rabbit-brush   (Chrysothamnus  nauseosus) 


267 


INDEX 


Acer,  226 

Achillea,  185 
Acorns,  68,  231 
Acorus,   192 

Adam's-thread-and-needle,  168 
Aesculus,  81,  211 
Agave,  133,  169,  216 
Agrostemma,  244 
Alder,  227 

Black,  165 
Algairoba,  61 
Alkanet,  225 
Allium,  17 
Allspice,  Wild,  145 
Alnus,   227 
Amanita,  237 
Amaranthus,  53,  128 
Amelanchier,  89 
Ammobroma,  39 
Amole,  168 
Ampliicarpaea,  61 
Anemopsis,  202 
Anise,    Sweet,    14 

Wild,  14 
Apios,  2,  59 
Apoc^num,  212 
Arctostaphylos,  94,  230 
Arisaema,  37 
Arrow-arum,  36 
Arrow-head,  31 
Arrow-root,  Florida,  29 
Arrow-wood,    230 
Artichoke,  Jerusalem,  4 
Asclepias,  119,  214 
Asimina,  100 
Astragalus,  245 
Atriplex,  54,  119 
Audibertia,   54 
Avena,  54 
Avens,  Purple  or  Water,  161 

Balm,  Mountain,   198 


260 


Barbarea,   124,   126 

Barberry,  97,  223 

Barrel-cactus,    133,    157 

Batatas  de  Canada,  6 

Bayberry,  232 

Bear-berry,  230 

Bear-grass,    137 

Bear's  weed,   108 

Bee-plant,  Rocky  Mountain,  228 

Berberis,  97,  223 

Berry,  Bay,  232 

Bear,  230 

Bulfalo,  83 

Candle,  232 

Checker,  102 

Ink,   164 

June,  89 

Juniper,  78 

Lemonade,   152 

Pigeon,  197,  244 

Service,  89 

Silver,    85 

Tea,  102 

Wax,  232 
Betula,  105 
Birch,  Cherry,   165 

River,  165 

Sweet,  165 
Biscuit-root,  12 
Bisnaga,  133 
Bitter-bark,  197 
Bitter  root,  14 
Black-drink,    161 
Bledo,    128 
Blood-root,   223 
Bois  dare.  221 

de  plomb,  218 

roule,   231 
Boneset,   189 
Bouncing  Bet,  181 
Boutoloua,  231 
Bracken,  114 


INDEX 


Brassica,    194 
Bread,  Indian,  39 
Breed-root,  Indian,  7 
Brodiaea,  19,  20 
Broussonetia,  252 
Buck-brush,   175 
Buckeye,   California,  81 

Southern,  211 
Buckthorn,   91 
Buckwheat,  Wild,   123 
Buffalo-berry,  83 
Bullbrier,   31 
Butternut,   227 
Butter,  Sahuaro,  112 

Cabbage,  Poor  Man's,  124 

Wild,  126 
Cabbage  palmetto,  138 
Cactus,  107,  132,  231 

Barrel,    133,    157 
Calabasilla,    181 
Calamus,  192 
Calandrinia,    131 
Calico-bush,  245 
Calochortus,   19 
Camas,  21 

death  or  white,  245 
Camassia,   19,  23 
Camote  de  los  medanos,  39 
Canadiennes,  6 
Caiiaigre,    121 
Canchalagua,  207 
Candleberry,  234 
Cauutillo,  159 
Carrizo,  218 
Carum,   13 

Cascara  sagrada,  195 
Cassena,  161 
Cassia,   186 
Cat-tail,  40 
Caulanthus,  126 
Ceanothus,   142,   175 
Centaury,  American,  207 
Cereus,  110 
Checker-berry,    102 
"Cheese,"  Tuna,   110 
Chenopodium,  52,   119,   174 
Cherry,  Ground,  87 
Wild,  190,  245 


270 


Chia,  42,  152 
Chicory,  117,  149 
Chicot;   148 
China-brier,  29 
China-tree,  Wild,  176 
Chinquapin,  Water,  34,  48 
Chittem-wood,  197 
Chlorogalum,   170.  211 
Chocolate-root,  161 
Chrysothamnus,  222 
Chufa,  25 

Cichorium,    118,   149 
Cicuta,  239 
Cladastris,   221 
Claytonia,  16 
Cleome,  228 
Cloyer,  139 
Cockle,   Corn,  244 
Coffee,  Wild,   197 
Coffee-tree,  Kentucky,  148 
Colt's-foot,   Sweet,  2^32 
Conium,  239 
Consumptive's-weed,  198 
Conte,  28,  29 
Coontie,  28 

Cornel,  Silky,  225,  230 
Cornus,  205,  225,  230 
Cota,  160 
Covillea,   202 
Cowbane,  239 
Crataegus,   92 
Creosote-bush,  202,  232 
Cress,  Barbara's,  124 

Water,  124 

Winter,  124 
Croton,   159,  211 
Cucurbita,   179 
Cunila,   193 
Cyperus,  25 

Dalea,  228 
Dandelion,  116 
Dasylirion,  137 
Datil,    104 
Datura,  247 
Deatli-camas,  245 
Death-cup,  237 
Desert-trumpet,    123 
Dirca,   218 


I 


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INDEX 


Dittany,  193 
Dock,  Curled,   121 
Dog^vood,    Flowering,    205,    225, 
231 

Red  Osier,  230 

Western,  205 

Echinoeactus,    133,   157 
Elder,  Poison,  254 
Eleagniis,  85 
Elymus,  55 
Encinilla,   159 
Ephedra,  158 
Ericoma,  56 
Eriodictyon,  198 
Eriogonum,   123 
Erythraea,  207 
Eupatorium,   189 

Fever-bush,   145,  206 
Fig,  Indian,    107 
Foeniculum,    14 
Folle  avoine,  45 
Fuller's  Herb,  183 


Galium,  225 
Garget,  244 
Garrya,  206 
Gaultheria,  102,  147 
Geum,  161 
Goat-nut,  78 
Gobernadora,  202 
Golden-club,  36 
Goldenrod,   147 
Golden  seal,  223 
Golondrina,  206 
Gourd,  Misssouri,  179 
Graisse  de  boouf,  84 
Grape,  Oregon,  97 
Grass,  Bear,  137 

Scurvy,  126 
Grass-nut,  20 
Greasewood,  202 
Grindelia,  200 
Groundnut,  2,  59 
Gumplant,  200 
Gum-leaves,    198 
Guaco,  228 
Gymnocladus,  148 


PTarvest  Brodiaea,  20 
Haw,  Black,  92 

Sumnu-r,  92 
Hawthorn,  American,  92 
Hazel,  Wild,  78 
Hedeoma,  193 
Hedeondilla,   202 
Helianthua,  4,  7,  49,  50 
Hemlock,  Poison,  240 

Water,  239 
Hemp,  Wild,  214 

Indian,  212 
Herba  Fullonum,  183 
Hickory  Milk,  07 
Hoarhound,   186 
Hoskawn,    106 
Hyacinth,  California,  20 
Hydrastis,  223 

Ilex,  162 
Indian  Bread,  39 

Breadroot,    7 

Chocolate,  161 

Fig,    107 

Hemp,  212 

Lemonade,   152 

Lettuce,   129 

Millet,  56 

Potatoes,  19 
Inkbcrry,  164 
Ipomoea,  10 
Isla}',  57 
Ivy,  Poison,  254 


Jaboncillo,    176 
Jack-in-the-pulpit,  37 
Jerusalem  artichoke,  4 
Jimson-weed,  247 
Jojoba,  80,   100 
Joshua-tree,   100 
'^uglans,  227 
June-berry,    SO 

^  Juniper,  Alligator,  78 

"^    California,   78 
]    Check-barked,  78 
Utah,  78 


271 


Kalmia,  245 
Kinnikinnik,  225,  229 


INDEX 


119 


245 

207 


152 
Miner's,   129 


Kisses,   131 

Lambkill,  245 
Lamb's-qiiarters, 
Larrea,  202,  232 
Laurel,  American, 

California,    139, 

Sheep,  245 
Leatherwood,  218 
Lechiifruilla,  169 
Ledum.   144 
Leek,  Wild,  17 
Lemon,  Wild,  99 
Lemonade,  Indian, 
Lettuce,  Indian  or 
Lewisia,  14 
Lilac,  Wild,  144,  175 
Lily,  Great  Yellow  Pond,  48 

Sego,  19 
Lindera,   145 
Lithospermum,  224 
Loco-weed,  245 
Lophophora,   252 
Lotus,  American,  34 
Lycium,  86 

Madura,  221 
Madder,  Wild,  225 
Madia,  56 
Mahogany,   156 
Mandrake,  American,  99 
Mangla,   156 
Man-of-the-earth.   10 
Manzanita,  94,  156,  230,  257 
Maple,  Red,  226 

Sugar,  220 
INIariposa  tulip,  19 
Marrubium,  186 
Mastransia,  204 
IMate,    164 
May-apple,   99 
May  pop,  101 
Menispermum,  242 
Mentha,  152 
Mescal,  134,  217 

-bean,  251 

-button,   252 
Mesquit,  61 
Micromeria,  150 


272 


Milkweed,  Common,  119,  216,  219 

Swamp,  215 
Milfoil,  185 
Millet,  Indian,  56 
Mock-orange,   179 
Montia,  129 
Moonseed,  242 
Moosewood,  218 
Muhlenbergia,    231 
Mullein,  Turkey,  211 
Mushroom,  Sacred,  252 
Mushrooms,  237 
Mustard,  Black,  194 

White,  194 
My   Lady's  Wash-bowl,    183 
Myrica,  232 
Myrtle,  144,   175 

Nasturtium,   124 
Nelumbo,  34 
Nettle,   127,  214 
Nicotiana,  229 
Nigger-head,  133 
Nightshade,  242 
Nopal,   107,  132 
Nuphar,  49 
Nut-grass,  25 


Oak,  Basket,  68 

California  Black,  73 
Canyon   Live,   73 
Coast  Live,  73 
Cow,  68 
Dyer's,  222 
Kellogg,  73 
Poison,  257 
Quercitron,  222 
Scarlet,    222 
Valley  White,   73 
Valparaiso,  73 
Oat,  Wild,  17,  54 
Onion,  Wild,  17,  20 
Opuntia,   107,   132 
Orange,  Mock,    179 

Osage,  221 
Oregon  Grape,  97 
Orontium.  36 
Osier,  Red,  230 


INDEX 


Pachyma,  39 

Palm,  California  Fan,  112 

Palmetto,   Cabbage,    138 

Palmilla   anclia,    104 

I'anicum,    50 

Papaw,   100 

Passitlora,    101 

Peach,  Wild,  108 

Peanut,  Hog,  01 

Pear,  Prickly,  107 

(Sugar,  89 
Peltandra,    36 
Penca,   132 

Pennyroyal,  American,  193 
Pepperwood,  139,  207 
Petasites,  232 
Peucedanum,    10 
Peyote,  252 
Pliragmites,  218 
Phvsalis,  87 
Phytolacca,   119,  244 
Pickles,   123 
Pieplant,   Wild,    121 
,  Pigweed,  52,   119,   174 
Pine,   Digger,   75 

One- leaved,  75 

Parry,  76 

SugaV,  75,  220 
Pinole,  50,  54 
Piiion,  75 

Pitahava,    111,   133 
Plum,  \Yild,  57 
Podophyllum,  99 
Poivrier,   145 
Pokeweed,   119,  244 
Pomme  blanche,  7 

de  Canada,  6 

de  prairie,  7 
Portulaca,  129 
Potato,    Indian,   19 

Prairie,  7 

Wild,  9 
Prairie  potato,  7 

turnip,   7 
Prickly   rear,    107 
Prosopis,  61,  66 
Prunua,  57,  245 
yPseudotsuga,   150 
^soralea,  7,  214 


Pteris,    114 
Puccoon,   223 

red,  223 

yellow,   223 
Purslane,    129 

Winter,  131 

Quelite.  128 
Quercus,  73,  222 
Quinine-bush,  206 

Wild,  207 
Quiote,   137 

Rabbit-brush,  222 
Racine  amere,   14 

blanche,   13 
Raiz  diabolica,   252 
Rattlesnake-weed,  206 
Rattleweed,  247 
Red-bean,  251 
Red  Maids,  131 
Red-root,   142 
Reed-grass,  218 
Rhamnus,  91,    1!»5 
Rhuliarb,  Wild.  121 
Rhus,    154.  230,  254 
Rice,  Wild,  45 
Rocket.   Yellow,    124 
Rose,  Xutka,  03 
Rose-hij)s,  Wild,  92 
Rumex,   121 
Rye-grass,  55 

Sabal,   138 
Sabbatia.  207 
Sage,   White,   54 
Sagittaria.   31 
Sahuaro,    110 
Salal,    102 
Salt-l)ush.  54 
Salvia,   42.  43 
Sand  Food,  39 

-grass,  56 
Sanguinnria.  223 
Sapindus.  170 
Sapoiuiria.   181 
Sassafras,   144 
Scirpus,  25 
Screw-bean,  66 


273 


INDEX 


Scurvv-grass,  126 

Sego-niy,   19 

Senna,  Wild,  186 

Service-berry,  89 

Sesbania,   214 

Shad-bush,  89 

Sheep-nut,  78 

Shepherdia,  83 

Shrub-vellow-root,  223 

Silk-tassel-bush,  206 

Silverberry,  85 

Simmondsia,  78,  160 

Smilax,   29 

Soapberry,   177 

Soap-plant,  California,  170,  211 

Soap-root,    168 

Soapwort,  181 

Solanum,  9,  242 

Solidago,    147 

Song-wal,  56 

Sophora,  252 

Sotol,   137 

Spanish  Bayonet,  137,  168 

Dagger,  104 
Spicewood,   145 
Spider-flower,  Pink,  228 
Spring-beauty,  16 
Spruce,  Douglas,  150 
Squaw-bush,  154 

-grass,  55 
Stachvs,  204 
Stanleya,  126 
Sueda,   228 
Sugar-pear,  89 
Sumac,  Dwarf,   154 

Poison,  254 

Smooth,  154,  230 

Staghorn,  154 

Swamp,  254 
Sunflower,  Wild,  4,  49,  222 
Sweet- flag,  192 


Mountain,  147 

New  Jersey,  142,  175 

Sassafras,  144 

Teamster's,  158 
Teaberry,    102 
Thelesperma,  159 
Thirst  Preventives,  65,  94,  204 
Thorn-apple,  247 
Thorough  wort,    189 
Tisava  jaune-rouge,  225 
Toloache,    250 
Tomate  de  campo,  87 
Tomatillo,  86 
Tornillo,  66 
Trifolium,   139 
..^-sTsuga,   149 
Tuckaho,  38 

Virginia,  36 
Tule,  25 
Tuna,  107 
Turnip,  Prairie,  7 
Typha,  40 


Umbellularia,  139,  207 
Urtica,  127 


Viburnum,  230 


Wahoo,  197 
Walnut,  White,  227 
Wappatoo,   33 
Washingtonia,    112 
Waxberrv,    232 
Wheat,  Wild,  55 
Whisky,  Dry,  252 
Winter-berry,  165 
Wintergreen,    102,    147 
Woundwort,  204 


Taraxacum,   116 
Tar  weed,  56 
Tea,  Chaparral, 

Desert,  158 
j/^emlock,  149 
Labrador,   144 


159 


274 


Xanthorrhiza,  223 

Yamp,  13 

Yarrow,  185 

Yaupon,   161 

Yellowwood,  Kentucky,  221 


INDEX 

Yerba  biiena,  150  Yucca,  104,  137,  168,  216 

del  pescado,  211 

de  vibora,  206  Zamia,  28 

mansa,   200  Zi/.ania,  45 

santa,  198  .  Zygadenus,  245 


275 


DEC  82 

N.  MANCHESTER, 
INDIANA  46962 


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